Making Lemonade
by DomesticatedWerewolves
Summary: Willow is a newly-turned fledgling, and she’s smart enough to know that any vampire in England is considered a threat to the Hellsing organization. As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. But will they accept her? AU
1. Prologue: Making Friends

Kana: Yay, another OC story. You people seem to like those; well, some like them immensely, some hate them horribly. You're a tosser if you see the letters O and C together and instantly hate my guts. But if you give it a chance and hate my guts anyway, I'll respect you for trying it out :D

**Summary:** Willow is a newly-turned fledgling, and she's smart enough to know that any vampire in England is considered a threat to the Hellsing organization. As the saying goes, if you can't beat them, join them. But will they accept her?

**Notes on the Holy Scripture**: I _never_ put romance into my OC stories, unless it's between an OC and another OC, or a canon character and another canon character. Though I do believe that there are _some_ EPIC writers who can do this, I can't, because to me…it's weird. Just…weird.

This is set before Millennium, but after Seras. There _will_ be Millennium though, because if I didn't put them in here, my own Nazi would hate my ass (COUGHeventhoughshewantsMajor'sassCOUGH).

**Warnings: **Um…language…violence…sexual suggestions (cause if Alucard didn't incorporate something relating to 'loins', he wouldn't be Alucard)…some gore (see above). Basically everything you would get in a Hellsing OVA. Or an episode of House, because you KNOW House is just Alucard in disguise (except for the need to slaughter everything).

**Disclaimer:** I own only Willow. Nothing related to Hellsing is mine. Whoever wants to sue me now can kiss my lazy arse.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Prologue: Making Friends **

xxx

I knew I was in enemy territory the minute the guard's scent wafted over to my hiding place. I felt my body tense, my bare feet kneading the soft ground in preparation to run. It would be very simple, just drag one of the little ones off and see what being supreme was truly about.

Oh God. I had started to think like them.

Repressing these cannibalistic thoughts, I stood up straight for the first time in days. Hunger was crawling and tearing at my insides, making it hard for me to think straight. But it felt good to be out of that horrible crouch, the only position that made it hard for the delicious scent of blood to make it to my nose.

I knew I looked like a horror. My face was thin and pale, with dark circles under my new red eyes. If I didn't have a black scarf over the bottom half of my face to protect me from the smell of humans, my lips would have been slim and bloodless. My shirt had once been a gift from my mother, a lovely sea-green button-up shirt that was loose and perfect for grandmas – or those who were practical and modest. But now it was stained with mud and blood, and my black slacks had long lost the perfect crease that I loved and were now torn to my knees.

Looking up warily at the gentle light of dusk, I stepped out from my hiding place in the shrubs that lined the fence of the Hellsing Manor and walked calmly over to a pair of guards, who were standing in front of the gothic entrance gate.

"I wish an audience with -," I began, but in the dim light my eyes had started to glow, making the guards' training kick in.

"Vampire!" one of them snarled, raising a gun to me and firing.

My dead heart ached, a feeling that I connected with fear and disappointment. The bullet was coming in slow, and I dodged it easily. I could have batted it out of the way, but then it might have ricocheted and hit someone else. That would have been a shitty first impression.

"I do not want a fight!" I said hurriedly, before anyone else thought it fun to use me as a bull's eye. I spread my arms out in greeting. "I wish only to speak with Sir Hellsing!"

My speech and lack of aggression made the guards eye me suspiciously. I could tell that I had blindsided them a little, and for some reason that made me feel superior.

_I am not superior_, I told myself. _I am a horrible abomination whose only examples are monsters. I __**am**__ a monster. _

Thinking this made my face unconsciously screw up in anger, and the guards were instantly on edge again. But I was unarmed and hadn't done anything that suggested that I was going to eat them, so they looked like they might just decide to let me live and take me to Sir Hellsing.

Until one of the guards nudged the other one and said, "Go get Alucard. He'll know what to do with her."

_Ah fuck_. I had hoped to avoid Alucard by sleeping near the borders of the Hellsing estate and coming early, knowing that a badass vampire like him wouldn't be up before the pitch blackness of true night set in. And now they were going to wake him up just because I was too stupid to think of a better way to get an audience with Sir Hellsing. And he was going to kill me just because -.

"I'm already here."

I shrieked as a chilling, resonant voice came from _right behind me_. Out of pure fear I took both my weak arms, planted my hands on the offender's chest, and _shoved_. The power left in my arms could have toppled five grown men, lifted a school bus, or splintered a wall.

The person didn't even wobble.

With dread rising in my chest, I stared up at the menacing, authority-drenched form of Alucard. He wore red the way other vampires favored black, as flamboyant as they come with his tell-tale hat on his head of charcoal hair and his glasses winking in the dying sun. And he was smirking at me, his lips going from ear to ear, showing me a mouthful of fangs.

_Don't scream, don't scream, don't scream,_ I thought in desperation. _Don't __**cry**__ either. _I whimpered, attempting to shrink and become a smaller target, praying that if he decided to kill me, he would do it quickly.

"Such a rude little thing you are," Alucard said in dark amusement. "No greeting towards someone who is obviously your better."

My vocal cords weren't working, but I managed to choke out a 'hello' that sounded more like a mouse trying to speak. This seemed funny to Alucard, and he started to chuckle. It was a _bad_ chuckle. The kind that the murderer gives to their victim right before they start the torture. The wind made his long coat flutter, and I caught a glimpse of his infamous guns, the _Casull_ and the _Jackal. _I had heard about them from the vampire coven that had tried to 'educate' me during my first night, and they were rumored to be able to blow a hole through _any_thing.

"What are you doing, scaring my master's guards?" Alucard asked, walking closer to me and circling around me, his body inches from mine.

"I wish an audience with Sir Hellsing," I whispered, so quietly that the human guards couldn't hear it. But Alucard caught it as if I was screaming. It was something that I had practiced over and over, until it sounded as innocent as can be.

Alucard let out a bark of a laugh. He sneered at me. "Why should I believe you? Perhaps you're only interested in killing my master?"

"I…I wish an audience with Sir Hellsing." Great. That had become my mantra, and now, as my brain reverted into its primal form, it was the only thing I was able to say.

"Yes, I heard that before." Alucard snickered at me, stepping back once he thought I was thoroughly frightened into doing nothing that would upset him. He turned towards the two guards and gruffly said, "I will be taking her to the audience she so greatly desires. Make sure you don't let your guard down just because this one vampire is smarter than the others."

Grabbing my upper arm none-too-gently, Alucard began to lead me into the estate. I had told myself that if I was able to convince the guards that I was harmless, I would enjoy the view of the Hellsing Manor. But now I was concentrating on not throwing up, so all I could see was Sir Hellsing's grass.

It was nice grass.

"Why do you wear that scarf?" Alucard asked, looking down at me from under his glasses. His eyes were calculating, with slits for pupils.

"So I don't lose control of myself," I squeaked, having trouble keeping up with his _massive_ strides. The guy could probably cover the distance of a football field if he really put his mind to it.

"You should have fed before you tried that stunt." Alucard tugged me harder when I fell behind. "The hunger in your eyes made me act; though I would have enjoyed tearing you apart afterwards." His fingers were tightening painfully around my arm.

Ignoring the bloodlust in his voice, I started to jog so that he wouldn't drag me along anymore. "I have not fed from a human since I was turned."

Alucard laughed, throwing back his head. Unfortunately, this did little to slow down his ridiculous pace. "How pathetic. You've retained a sense of good and evil."

We were nearing the manor at an amazing rate, and I knew it was because he was practically running. My long brown hair was whipping behind me as Alucard led me on an exhausting race, in which I was hauled behind. But I dared not complain or slow down, in fact, I barely increased my breathing.

He was testing me. And I was determined to pass.

Just as we neared the front doors – and another few guards – Alucard instantly stopped and stood ramrod straight, which was something that I could not do, vampire or otherwise. So I bumped into him, fell backwards, and landed on my behind with a little squeak.

When I looked up, pain pulsing through my abused spine, Alucard was looking down on me, in more ways than one.

"Get up," he snapped.

And I did, standing at attention with my hands shaking. If I had been human, I would have been sweating and my heart would have been hammering.

Once I was on my feet, Alucard grabbed me again, and this time it was not in the sternness that it had once been. He leaned down to me, letting his breath waft over my face as he snarled in warning.

"If you do anything that makes me think that you are a threat to my master, I will personally make sure that you regret it with every fiber of your being before I slaughter you mercilessly."

Staring up at him, I saw my doom in Alucard's eyes.

xxx

Yes, I know I'm starting another story without finishing the other two I was writing, but I'm finding it hard to write those. My characterization of Alucard was WAY off in my previous ones, and I'm working on making it a little better in _Fidelity _and _Patriarch_. So I decided that working on an OC fic – which is quite relaxing and easy to write – would help me.

Lets forgive me and review :D


	2. Making Morbid Juice Boxes

Kana: (sighs) Nothing awesome to say – yet. (dances away to the tune of her new Nickelback CD) Dammit Word, stop correcting the freaking epicness of Nickelback. It is SO a word, along with 'dammit', and 'epicness'. Stupid thingy. Correcting the names of Alucard and Integra, even though they should be in the bible. (shakes fist)

**Disclaimer:** If I owned Hellsing, I would have given the manga a totally PWNSOME ending. In fact, I wouldn't have ended it at all. It would have gone on and on, with just random drabble chapters in which there is only Walter x Alucard fan service. Because that is the best pairing of all.

I remember once, when I wrote a short story for class, my teacher deducted points for my page breaks. I should have sent Alucard to eat her, but he wouldn't have been able to finish -.- Instead I wrote 'pray to your impudent gods' on the final I handed to her. I know I rock some serious bitches. She gave me a C and hated my ass.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter One: Making Morbid Juice Boxes**

xxx

Sir Hellsing was not who or what I expected. I had pictured this badass, looming man with a personal vendetta against all vampires and a thing for really formal suits. Yet here was this woman. Still menacing and looming on all accounts, but with this…thing about her. A certain kind of grace and regality. And she seemed to have a vendetta against clean air, not vampires, because she was puffing her way through a massive cigar that she clenched between her teeth.

I found myself cowering in front of her almost as much as I did with Alucard, who was finding this all very hilarious, chuckling in the corner of the office.

"You come here, and yet you don't speak?" Sir Hellsing said, confused. She looked amused, but not in the sadistic, cruel way Alucard was. Her amusement poked at her lips, trying in vain to make her smile, but I think the cigar made it impossible. Her voice was feminine, but because of the cigar it was slightly mannish. She was the best of both worlds.

"I think she's intimidated, Sir Integra," the elderly butler said from beside her. He was standing in the shadows, his monocle glinting. God, everyone wore glasses here, and they all fucking glowed like devil-lights. If these people ever went to a third world country, they would be gods just because they could do that. "Look at her shivering."

The office itself was only illuminated by the silvery moon outside the windows, which made it seem like a starker version of daylight. It gave the room a mystical, beautiful feel, and I found my vampire senses calmed. Perhaps this was a Hellsing thing, what with their vampire pets, to keep them happy and satisfied.

I quivered near to the door, feeling very brave, because I hadn't started to grovel yet. I _refused_ to grovel, mostly because I liked my limited amount of dignity, and because my pants couldn't stand any more abuse.

Sir Hellsing nodded, smoke from her cigar creating a halo around her head. "I suppose so. Alucard, you are frightening the vampire. Please retire to your rooms."

Alucard looked like this was all a delightful joke, and his disturbing grin was still on his face. The glint of his sunglasses made it neigh impossible to see his eyes. "But what if she attacks?" he asked, his voice suggesting that he wanted me to attack, just so he could rip off my head and drink from the fountain of blood that would follow. Tosser.

"Do you doubt Walter's abilities to protect me?" Sir Hellsing asked, quirking an eyebrow at her servant. She rested her chin on her folded hands and watched me intently.

Chuckling, Alucard bowed to her, removing his hat. "Never do I underestimate the Angel. As you wish," Without taking a single step, he glided backwards through the wall and disappeared.

I released the breath I was holding, but sucked it back in once I noticed Sir Hellsing staring at me.

"Why are you breathing?" Sir Hellsing asked me in curiosity. "You don't need to."

Trying to act tough, I held my chin higher and attempted to look her in the eye. I failed. "Force of habit, Sir; I have been a vampire for only a few days." I had gotten out two full sentences. I was on a roll.

"A fledgling," Sir Hellsing's lips twitched, practically becoming a smile. My heart would have fluttered if it could. "Yet I see you have almost complete control of yourself."

"It's the scarf, Sir," I set my jaw and got ready for the questions. "I rubbed it in garlic flowers to scar my nose temporarily, and use it to keep the smell of blood away from me."

"Alucard told me that you had not yet fed, but you have red eyes," Sir Hellsing commented, her eyes flicking to the butler. He nodded and walked towards me.

For a second I thought he was going to inspect or harm me, so I took a few steps away. But the butler was merely heading for the door, and left the room.

Now I was just me and Sir Hellsing. Alucard would have not been pleased.

"Do not worry about him," Sir Hellsing said, still picking me apart with her eyes. "He is going to retrieve some blood for you. I'm sure you're hungry," She tapped some ash into a tray that had such a revolting smell that it permeated my scarf. It must have been made of silver. "Now clarify the color of your eyes."

I stood straight again, trying not to look at the door too much. "I… I said I hadn't fed from a _human_." I glanced at the floor. "I killed my sire…drank his blood for my freedom."

Now it was my turn to get an eyebrow quirk. "Who was your sire? Surely not a high-class vampire."

"No…no, Sir." I sighed, staring at my bare feet. I wished I had a decent pair of shoes, but I hadn't had time to grab some when I fled my house. Now I was ruining Sir Hellsing's carpet. "He was my brother. An idiot on all accounts."

"I see," Sir Hellsing snuffed out the remaining inch of her cigar into the horrid ashtray. "And you did not approve of the conditions that he presented to you?"

"Not in the slightest."

"Tell me; what is your name?"

I shifted my feet absently. "Willow Brenner, Sir."

"Brenner?"

Nodding, I relaxed visibly when I realized that Sir Hellsing was growing curious of me, which took me off her list of vampires to watch out for. "It's the reason why I came to know about the Hellsing Organization. There were rumors about a vampire who used that for an alias. Dumb luck, I guess."

"Yes…" Sir Hellsing became lost in thought as the butler entered the room again, carrying with him two heavy pouches of blood. My eyes locked on them, and I felt the need to rip off my scarf and go at them in utter abandon. Sir Hellsing acknowledged the butler. "Walter, give Miss Brenner a room in the dungeons, near Seras. Have the Police Girl keep an eye on her," (The butler mouthed the word 'Brenner?') She turned her attention back towards me. "Do you have a coffin with you?"

I bit my lip. "Should I?"

The butler nodded and looked at me, fully prepared to lead me through hell and back if Sir Hellsing commanded so. I was still focusing on the blood packets. "I will have one retrieved for you. Unfortunately, Miss Victoria took our 'spare', so you will have to sleep in a crate of soil tonight."

Not much different from my accommodations last night. At least it would be with a roof over my head this time. "Fine with me." I turned back to Sir Hellsing and bowed like Alucard had done. Unbeknownst to me, Sir Hellsing and the butler exchanged amused glances. "I suppose I've been accepted?"

Sir Hellsing shook her head. "Not in the least," my heart sank, "but we are not people to turn away a vampire willing to become a good example, Willow," she began something akin to a speech one would give a child, "you are not bound to this family, like Alucard, and you are not sired by one who is bound. You are a wild card, and will not be fully trusted for quite some time. You have not been accepted, and I will not intervene if Alucard thinks it best to silence you."

I bowed my head in shame for being too hasty. "Yes, Sir," I made a move to follow the butler, much like a dejected dog follows its adoptive owner after its previous one willingly sent it on its way.

"But," Sir Hellsing said, making we whip around like the aforesaid dog. "If Alucard can deem you safe and useful, I will see about placing seals upon you. You were smart enough to know that if you continued on like a normal vampire would, that you would eventually be slaughtered anyway. I have a feeling you could do something for us."

That had been like being backhanded, but then having the offender apologize and give you an ice pack. I didn't know whether to feel hopeful or saddened.

But then the butler jiggled a blood pack in front of me, and I started following him like a cat following something shiny. This made both of them chuckle at my antics.

If all else failed, I could at least become some sort of jester to them…

xxx

The butler led me down four flights of stairs, past something like a sliding wall from a mystery movie, and into a dark, but thankfully dry, dungeon-like basement. It was illuminated by warm golden lights, not florescent ones, but I sourly missed the soothing moon.

I was led into a room that was furnished with a dresser, an old vanity table and mirror - which was _useless_, as I had no reflection - a bed – which was also useless, and a small table and chair, which I figured were for all the tea parties I was going to have with Alucard. A large wooden crate filled to the halfway mark with warm, inviting soil from under my old house in Piccadilly (which is fucking ironic) was in the center of the room.

As soon as the butler handed me the blood packets I was on them like white on rice. But since I didn't want to open them like a moron and spill the blood, I asked him what to do, holding out a single packet to him with a pleading expression on my face. He chuckled and showed me how to pull out the little tube that would usually attach to an IV, turning the packet into a morbid juice box.

Sucking in abandon, I didn't even notice the butler leave, letting me sit on the floor in peace and enjoy my first decent meal since I had become a vampire. My scarf was thrown off since I wouldn't need it with my hunger under control, and it fluttered away, never to be seen again.

I also didn't notice someone else enter my new room.

"Oh, hello."

Looking up, I stopped acting like I was starving – cause I _wasn't_ – and looked up at them. I must have looked like a savage, with my clothes torn and my face drawn and my hair in a snarl. I had no shoes, smelled like blood and death, had barely any shirt, and probably had blood down my chin.

The new girl had on a uniform that was a strange yellow color – the same as the guards – and needed another couple inches on her skirt, along with something off the adult's rack for a shirt, instead of the child-small she was wearing. Her eyes were blue, but I could smell the earthy scent of vampire all over her.

"You're Seras Victoria," I said bluntly, taking another mouthful of blood.

The girl blinked in surprise. "Can you read my mind like master?"

I shook my head. "Not even a whisper. But Sir Hellsing said that my room was to be near yours, and you reek of vamp. I put two and two together, cause I'm apparently a smarty," I finished the first packet and started on the second, sloppily releasing the straw-like IV tube.

"Oh," Seras said, once again perky. She watched me eat, and it made me a little uncomfortable.

"Want some?" I asked, licking my lips and offering the remaining packet to her.

Shaking her head in discomfort, Seras rejected the offer. "I'm…not hungry."

"More of the awesome for me then," I murmured, teasing the tube with my tongue. My eyes went for the crate of soil, and I thought about trying it out. But it was just barely beginning to get dark, so I thought against it.

"Walter said…said that you were a fledgling too…" Seras mentioned uncomfortably, sitting in the chair next to the table that I was seriously considering having Alucard over for tea on. It would be fucking hilarious.

"Three days and going strong," I said, showing her three fingers. To be honest, I was glad for her company. She seemed like a nice person, _nothing_ like Jeeves or The Jive Master (the butler and Alucard respectively), and not as stern as Sir Hellsing. I had feared it would be just me and the men.

Seras looked down at her feet. "You're drinking blood."

"That's what vampires do," Sadly, the second packet lasted as long as the first, and I placed them in a neat pile on the table. "It's better than wearing a bloody scarf."

Looking at me like I was a kook, Seras slowly regained her happy demeanor, which suited her all around bubbly appearance. "I've never seen another…non-hostile vampire."

"You probably have," I said, digging through the dresser and – to my horror – finding uniforms just like Seras's. I couldn't tell if they were as skimpy as hers until I tried them on, and I wasn't so keen on it at the moment. I also found sky blue pajamas, which I hugged in glee, feeling the softness of the cotton. "Isn't your ever-so-lovely master agreeable?"

The other fledgling pepped back up at the mention of Alucard. "Master is…pleasant, but not in the exact definition of the word." She played with the delicate tea set on the table, clinking the cups together. "He is patient with me, and I do my best to please him."

"So it's like a win-win situation," I said, burying my face into the soft pajamas. Secretly, I wanted a sire that cared for me, taught me how to be a vampire, actually felt pride when I did something right. Even if Alucard was the one, it would have been better than my actual sire.

Seras sensed my misery and instantly dropped the subject. "Are you…are you planning to go to sleep so early?" she asked, and I saw the hopefulness in her eyes. Eyes that I wish I still had.

"No…" I laid out the pajamas, but as soon as my answer reached her, Seras raced to the dresser and shoved a uniform giddily into my arms. I stared dumbly at the uniform, staggering a bit at her strength. Even though I knew my new vamp-strength was formidable, Seras Victoria could have kicked my ass on my best day and her worst day. "What…what are you playing at?"

"You can't go to training in your pajamas!" Seras giggled, and then started to leave the room. "I'll be back in a bit," she said over her shoulder.

…_training!?_ I looked at the uniform, my fingers trembling as I ran them over the buttons and patches on the shirt. Then I looked down at my bosom, thankful that I was what designers called 'petite'. I was short and wasn't graced like Seras was, and even her child-sized uniform would have bagged on me.

My uniform was remarkably tight though, the skirt hugging my waist and the shirt difficult to button around my chest. I turned bright red when I looked down at myself, unable to use the mirror – for all it showed me was a floating uniform – and saw that the skirt barely reached my knees.

I had always been the practical one. For my senior prom last year, I had worn a black pantsuit and sat alone with the other wallflowers. When I babysat my niece, Claire, I read to her and never let her do frivolous, useless activities like watching television. I wore pants and shirts that were comfortable and let me run or work in them.

This uniform was made for stripping…vamp stripping.

"Oh good, you're done," Seras bounced into the room, looking as bright as the sun. "Master told me to take you to the barracks and see how well you shoot."

"Wh – oh right…usefulness," I muttered to myself, pulling on a pair of socks that felt constricting after so long without shoes. The boots that came with the uniform were slightly too big, even though it must have been for a ten year old. I rubbed my neck, feeling insecure. "I guess Sir Hellsing isn't stopped by anything, huh? She's already got something for me to do."

"You mean Sir Integra?" Seras grinned, hauling me off the bed and out the door. She started to jog, but after Alucard's testing today, I lagged behind. She saw this and slowed to a more leisurely pace. "Yeah, she hates when people idle around and do nothing. Except master, of course."

She chatted while she led me _back_ up the stairs, through the mystery movie door, and into the soldier's barracks. She told me all about her previous work as a police officer, which explained why Sir Hellsing had called her the 'Police Girl', and about her master. I always knew that vampires were in every way connected to their sires, and Seras was no different. She had nothing bad to say about Alucard, except perhaps about his reluctance to call her by her real name.

"He…he never threatens to…to kill you?" I asked quietly, letting her take my wrist and guide me into the shooting range. Seras looked at me curiously and shook her head.

"Never." Seras finally came to a military green steel door that had a few ominous dents in it. "This is the shooting range. We have two in the manor. The main one is outside, but this one is for new soldiers to practice on. Master uses it only to test shipments of bullets, especially if a new cross was melted down to make them."

…'_kay._

It was like a standard police range, only there were two slots that were empty of any of the yellow- or green-clad soldiers. The one at the very end was labeled 'Alucard' and its little paper target-man had four _massive_ bullet holes in it. The wall behind the target was peppered with equally huge pits. The one next to it had 'Seras' in a nice, crisp new label, and its little paper man had regular-sized holes in it. Seras let me use her slot and demonstrated how to shoot the large rifle.

I stared at her when she tried to teach me about my 'third eye'.

"…huh?" I gasped stupidly, looking at her in shock.

Seras turned pink and bashfully looked everywhere but me. "Well…I'm not very good at it. I've only used it a few times, because I've only been on two missions. Master would do better if he was the one explaining it. I could go and get him if yo -."

"No!" After today's horrors, I didn't need any more time around Alucard. If I annoyed him, I had a feeling that I would be in a coffin permanently, not just for sleeping. "I…I can learn it on my own."

I couldn't. I tried many times to shoot with my so called 'third eye', but it was useless. I tried closing my eyes and shooting blindly, but when I did that I was a danger to everyone, making Seras squeal and take the gun away before I hurt any of the other soldiers. And when I had my eyes open, I couldn't hit the bull's eye in the center of the paper man's head or chest for the unlife of me.

After wasting four magazines and most of the night, I gave up. Not because I wanted to, but because Seras said that the soldiers were becoming jumpy. So she took the rifle away and told me that it was okay, and that we had made progress.

She told me to rest for the remainder of the night in the library, and I slowly made my way back down the stairs I knew so well. But I didn't go to the library. One: I didn't know where it was, and two: Alucard might feel like killing me if he saw me anywhere.

I went into my new room, even though it took me another hour to find it, and curled up in my box of dirt. Feeling scared and knowing that it was inevitable that I was useless without a sire to teach me, I slept.

xxx

I'm on a roll. Two chapters in one day! (Well, I wrote them in one day). And if anyone didn't catch the irony in where Willow lived – Piccadilly – then I'll clear it up. In the novel Dracula, our favorite count owned a house there. I thought it was silly.

Let's all review, cause I'm just so awesome. :D


	3. Making Fried Tomatoes

Kana: I wonder if 'I was working on my fucking awesome Vlad Dracula cosplay' counts as an acceptable excuse for having a mediocre essay…what about 'the vampire Nazis ate meh brainz'. I like the latter. Or perhaps 'I contemplated how the Valentine brothers were related' or even 'I went to investigate a village called Cheddar and got my boob shot off by a pimp vamp'. But I've already used them all before ;-; (I kid you not)

If you accidentally get anything that doesn't look like it belongs in this fic, tell me. Seriously. I was working on my English essay, French homework, a piece of original fiction, and watching Hellsing on my family's HD screen while doing it. And after Hellsing? James Bond. Oh yes. It might have influenced my jokes…

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hellsing. But if I did, it would have an opening theme in which Alucard danced to the James Bond theme while Integra contemplated blowing his head off in the background.

Ever have a fried tomato? Freaking excellent. And before you ask, yes – what happened to Willow's family was something I _literally_ pulled from a hat. The choices were as follows: death by ghouls, death by FREAK vampire, death by turned family member (this one), and death by Alucard (which I prayed wouldn't come up). All would have resulted in Willow's vampness one way or another.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Two: Making Fried Tomatoes**

xxx

When I woke up, Alucard was leaning over me. In a very disturbing way. Then again, anything he did was disturbing. He could be petting kittens and it would look disturbing. _"No Mr. Bond, I expect you to __**die**__."_ I would have giggled at the thought if the object of my parody wasn't looming over me.

"Um…hello?" Good, use earlier tactics.

"You are pathetic," Alucard said, smiling his unnerving smile. He had shark teeth. "I saw your results from target practice last night. Even my fledgling is not so incompetent."

"Seras is a better shot than I," I snapped, feeling more confident because of the hit at my pride. "That comes from her police training. I, however, have never held a gun in my life."

"You do not cling to your humanity like she does," Alucard said, and it wasn't a question. "You have the red eyes of a true vampire. You should have already discovered the nature of your third eye. You could be an excellent shot."

I hissed, purely on instinct, and that made Alucard chuckle with amusement. I caught myself though, and felt the shame rise in my gut as I hid my face in the dark soil of the crate. My sleep had been the best sleep of my life, better than when I had been alive and snuggled in the warm sheets of my bed. Better than any rest on the best mattress in the world. Last night had been a blur, now nothing but a dream.

The sleep of the dead.

Before I could protest, Alucard was gone, chuckling darkly. He was probably planning my death, and couldn't decide on how to kill me. I could hear his thoughts;_ The Jackal or the Casull? No, better eat her. No, I'll rip off her limbs and then beat her with them. YES!_ Dammit. 

After shaking my head to rid it of the terrible ringing his laughs had implanted there, I looked down at myself. I had accidentally fallen asleep in the kiddie uniform that the Hellsing Organization handed out to all of its female members for the sake of the soldiers' hard-ons. Now it was stained with the damp soil of London, and smelled like vampire – death and blood. I hoped that they would be able to get the mulch stains out.

Climbing out of the crate, I found a small envelope resting on the tea-party table. It was labeled to me, from the butler, Walter, and Sir Hellsing. It had the little Hellsing seal stamped on it, an approval from the Ministry, and the Queen's seal taking up space on its pristine white surface. All in all, it looked really important; not the kind of letter you burn from spite.

I carefully opened it, wondering what it was. My stomach quivered at all the possibilities. What if it was Sir Hellsing's formal termination of my short stay at her Organization?

Steeling myself against anything, I broke the Queen's seal and unfolded the letter.

_Dear Miss Brenner,_

_To assure ourselves of your decision the Hellsing Organization as a free vampire, we are setting up a meeting with the Convention of Twelve and her Majesty to question you and to possibly give you a temporary place among our undead ranks. You will be expected to be able to control yourself and your bloodlust throughout the ordeal, and to look and be respectable to Her Majesty the Queen. This meeting will take place on the third, in two days time. Until then, you will be the ward of the resident vampire sire, Alucard, who will be responsible for any further training that you will go through until I decide otherwise. _

_Formally, _

_Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing_

Oh God…Alucard was going to train me. I contemplated going to Sir Hellsing and begging for Seras to mentor me, but I knew that not only would I be turned down, but my doom would come even faster after I started showing weakness.

So I sucked it up and forced myself to feel happy about this. Alucard would be like my sire, something I know I craved dearly. As a vampire, I felt remorse for what my brother did, and I missed my father. My instincts told me that a sire would replace my family, but my original sire had been a monster. And even as a newborn vampire I knew that I didn't want to be a monster, nor have one for a master.

And Alucard was the biggest monster of them all. Perhaps in a better way; a monster's monster, per say. Still, I liked him a little more than I did my brother. At least he was sophisticated and knew what the hell he was doing.

"Good morning, Miss Brenner," said a ghostly voice behind me.

I screamed, jumped a good foot into the air, and whipped around. Oh thank God, it was only the butler, Walter. And he was carrying a silver tray that balanced a blood packet floating in a bowl of warm water and a tall glass. He stood straight-backed, eyeing me with a sparkle of good-natured amusement in his eyes.

Releasing a sigh of relief, I said, "Oh, it's just you."

"Expecting someone else?" the butler asked with a twinkle in his eyes. He set the tray down on the table, on top of the torn envelope.

"No, but Alucard's been showing up randomly."

The butler chuckled. "I suppose you've read your letter."

"Yes, sir," I mumbled, turning a little pink and poking the bag around in its bowl. It felt delightfully warm, a decent impression of life.

"Walter," the butler corrected.

"…Sir Walter?" Was everyone in this place knighted?

He smiled at me, reminding me of a grandfather. My grandparents had all died of old age and disease… "No, just Walter." His monocle shined in my eyes, making me blink.

"…Walter…" I stared at my feet, wiggling my toes in my socks. I looked ridiculous in this stained, dirty uniform. "I'm sorry."

Now it was his turn to act confused. "What for?"

"I forgot to change out of this…thingy," I said, not even able to call it a uniform. "And now it's…stained and stuff."

The butl – _Walter_ put a finger to his lips and said, "You're right. The damage is terrible. I'll have to get Alucard to kill you over this."

For a second I thought he was serious, but then he started laughing. "What?"

"Do you realize how dirty our uniforms get? I've had to wash out blood, intestinal fluid, and some form of brain from a shirt because one time Alucard decided to wear a real suit. A little dirt is nothing more than a grass stain."

_But Alucard is __**always**__ wearing a suit_, I thought in confusion as Walter left the room, his shoulders still shaking in mirth.

Sighing a little, I sat down at the tea party table and cut a little triangle out of the blood pouch's edge. I emptied a little of it into the glass and started my breakfast. I missed being able to have a warm breakfast, with toast and eggs and a little tomato. I wanted my father to fry some tomatoes and put them on the toast and…

_I need to go make that __**now**_, I thought, and put back the rest of the glass of blood before zipping out of the door and into the hallway.

It was cold and the floor was hard under the thin, generic grey carpet. I took off my socks and tossed them back into the bedroom before trying to find Seras's scent. It started in my room and led me down two doors, into a room that was just like mine, except there was no crate of dirt, only a bed.

"Seras…?" I whispered, too nervous to do anything else.

"Hello, Willow!" squealed a bubbly voice behind me.

I was pissed that people had kept sneaking up on me ever since I had been rudely awoken, so I couldn't help but feel a little angry towards Seras. But after a split second passed and I saw her all happy and giddy in her uniform, and I instantly loved her again.

"Hello, Seras," I said, sounding a little depressed – but oh well. I was a vampire whose family had been slaughtered by her brother, who she in turn killed. I deserved the miserable look on my face. "I was wondering if you knew where the kitchens were."

"Why?" Seras asked, looking at me with the blue eyes of an innocent. "Walter always brings blood to master and I. Did he forget about you?"

"No, I already ate." I followed her as she started leading me around without needing to hear the rest of my explanation, but I continued anyway. "But I want to make some food."

"To eat?" Seras sounded a little concerned. "But you'll get sick."

"I know. It's for nostalgic purposes."

"Oh…can I watch?"

"Fine by me."

Seeing my solemn distress, Seras left me alone. My uniform was still a mess, and I needed to do something with my hair. The little police girl watched in curiosity as I quickly buzzed around my room, brushing the wrinkles from my uniform and finding some sort of hair tie.

"You're very efficient," Seras commented, watching me pull my hair up in a big knot.

I knew this. I had been the girl who had been borderline OCD in high school, the perfectionist. My locker had been kept neat and orderly, with books arranged by period, and my few friends had always teased me about it. If I got a B in a subject I instantly freaked, and lost sleep over just about everything.

"It's a curse," I said, smiling a little. "Claire always called me Birdie."

"Why?" Seras's brow furrowed a bit.

"Because you always see birds hopping around and picking up sticks. Claire said that I did the same thing in a messy room." I pulled down the high skirt of my uniform, feeling slightly chilly.

"Is Claire your sister?" Seras asked, leading me back into the hallway once I was done. My feet were bare, but I didn't want to fuss with the boots.

"No…I never had a sister," I said, hitching a strand of wavy hair behind an ear. "She was my niece. She…she was with her mother when my brother went berserk." I made a mental note to find out what had happened to them, and if they were safe.

"Oh." Seras looked away, uncomfortable with the personal conversation. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I said, grinning. "I've learned to make the best of things. If everyone wallowed in the past, then we would get nowhere."

It bothered me that I was so calm about this. I was afraid that becoming a vampire had made me something I wasn't, perhaps I had become desensitized. But then I looked back, and found that even if I hadn't been made into a vampire, I wouldn't have shed too many tears. My way of life had made me very apathetic, and it scared me.

Seras changed the subject as soon as she could, and began animatedly talking about anything that she saw caught my interest. The thing that interested me the most was the description of her missions, and she was more than ready to chat about _those_. Seras knew a lot more about vampires than I did, and I was glad to be hearing it from her rather than the condescending voice of Alucard.

"How many brothers did you have?" Seras asked.

"Three," I said, giggling when her eyes widened. "It was a big testosterone-filled family. Claire was Timothy's daughter, my oldest brother." I almost skipped. "It was my younger brother who…"

Seras stopped me, knowing that it would ruin our happy mood.

xxx

I learned, to my dismay, that the Hellsing Manor was not as empty as it appeared. I had hoped – in a delusional state of denial – that it was just Sir Hellsing, Walter, and the vampires. Maybe a few soldiers, but nothing more frivolous than that. There were a handful of maids, a few lesser butlers – none as well-dressed as Walter – and a security room on every floor. Soldiers patrolled the hallways and stared as we walked by.

Seras seemed right at home though, chatting away. It was nice to have at least one friend in this desolate place, and Seras was a perfect companion to keep the brooding away. She was naturally perky, the exact opposite of Alucard, like a miniature sun. I had no idea why Alucard chose her as a fledgling.

It took ten extra minutes to reach the kitchens, mostly because Seras gave me a tour as we went along. She had been here for barely three days, as long as I had been a fledgling, yet she already knew where everything was. A twinge of angry green jealousy told me that Alucard had shown her around.

The kitchens were quite big, considering Sir Hellsing's company, and there were two fridges; one main one for food and stuff, and another, smaller one for blood. I lingered on the vamp-fridge for a moment before sifting through the main one.

"What on earth are you doing?" Walter asked in bewilderment when he came in five minutes later, finding two vampire girls savoring the smell of frying tomatoes.

"Acting on a whim," I muttered, sniffing the tomatoes. They did not smell like what father made. They were different, and it made my heart break.

"Vampires do not need a sense of whimsy," said an ethereal, husky voice. A moment later Alucard drifted through a wall near the door. Show off. "It only gets in the way."

A hard glob of fear nested in my throat, and I looked at the floor. His intimidating presence was enough to make me bow my head, something I had never done before. My pride was slowly deflating, shrinking back from Alucard's already stifling ego.

Alucard smirked at me. "You are a strange little yearling. So docile now; perhaps you are irate in the early evening. Not an early _bird_?"

_Bird. Auntie Birdie. _I pursed my lips and kept staring at my bare feet, my eyes shadowed by my hair. The glob of fear dropped into my stomach and blossomed, nearly consuming me. My pulse hammered, driven solely by fear. The tomatoes started to burn.

_Oh God,_ I thought for the nth time. There was nothing better than seeing your death to bring out the faith in people. _He heard me talking about my family. He knows about Claire, about Susan. About Timothy. _My eyes pricked at the thought of my only surviving brother.

Not noticing my fright, Walter asked, "What are you doing up so early?"

But Alucard could see my terror, and he reveled in it. He was leering at me as he answered. "I have interesting orders from my master. It seems I have a new…foster fledgling."

The frying pan made a painfully loud noise when I dropped it. Seras helped me as I started to scramble to clean it up, but Walter barely looked away from Alucard. He knew what the nosferatu was doing to me.

"Oh really?" Walter said, quirking an eyebrow. The one over the eye with the monocle. "Nearly a hundred years without a single fledgling, and suddenly you have two."

"Yes," Alucard drawled, his eyes watching as I threw away the ruined tomatoes. Seras had given up, as my frantic movements were too rushed to be synchronized in any way. "This will be interesting."

I looked up for a brief moment, and Alucard caught my gaze for the second time. And that was when I saw it.

In his eyes, the eyes of a predator and a hunter, I was the runt that had been abandoned to die. I had crawled into his den and tried to pretend to be one of his own. This was not survival of the fittest. Alucard had already accepted his own fledgling, his Seras. He was keeping me for fun, his amusement, possibly to use me as a scapegoat for Seras, or to bat around and see if I would crack.

When I started to annoy him, or became a burden, I knew he would devour me. He was the ruler of this manor, second only to Sir Hellsing, and in his eyes I was only food to play with.

xxx

Kana: TADA! I am so proud of myself. I plan to have this actually follow the manga/OVA, with Willow popping up during things like the Valentine brothers and the Rio incident. I've planned it all out, and I'm very happy with what the results _could_ be. But there's a woefully slim chance that it will turn out the way I want it do -.- Because I obviously hate myself and plot my own demise.

Hmmn, my dog is being a giant floppy load and taking up my side of the bed. Damn dachshund Nazi. She is obviously the Major in disguise. With her cute brown eyes and the way she eats cheese and the way she snores. (cuddles dog) I LUV YOU. Take up my side of the bed all you want!

Review Responses: Yes, I did decide to change the update date to Saturday. Because I am awesome.

the x: hell, I feel bad for Willow, and I'd give my left arm to be in the same room as Alucard. Course, then he'd eat the other and I'd be ARMLESS. D: Thanks.

Koori Youkai Hime: Oh, Alucard's gonna make Willow's life a living hell. See the above for the Discovery Channel version. X3

Rambonata: (hit in the head with the reviews) THE PAIN, IT IS SWEET. Anyway, thanks for the compliment, but if I uploaded twice a week, then I wouldn't be able to write fast enough, cause I have lots of stuff I have to do. Homework, working on my original stuff, and I have these BADASS tests (like, state exams) coming up this week, so the studying is sucking up most of my LIFE. Plus my cosplay for an upcoming convention is killing me on the inside. So you see, the once a week thing is for the greater good.

BlazingMidnightRain: Aw! The love is felt! Alright, here is where the story is going. It is going to go off into the sunset and hopefully be awesome. There. Yay.

DarkSandHanyou28: Nu, you are the epic reviewer of epicness. And yes, it was awesome, since we all have Hellsing aliases for some reason. I is Walter, and my friends are Seras, Doc, Schrödinger, the Major, and Rip. It is very fucked up. And its pretty much based on who we look the most like. Though if it was based on that…I would be Seras. ANYWAY. Really? Tea party and Alucard to me makes me think of him sitting on that stoop drinking out of a…morbid juice box. O.O

End Responses

If you love me, and you don't want Willow to be eaten by…I dunno, Alucard's fedora…but that's how I want to die so I guess it's up to you. (PS: my tombstone would say 'no parking'). Bye now. I need to go beg my dad to take me to the movies.


	4. Making Progress

Kana: I'm just churning out these chapters…I'm so proud of myself. Too bad you guys have to wait for all the awesome.

My dog is trying to stare me down from the side of my laptop. She's not blinking. I'm a little scared. I think she's winning. _Mmmmmphmn…!_

**Disclaimer**: I own NOTHING. It would be hilarious if I did though. I own only Willow. When I read the original story I have her in, I keep imagining Alucard busting into it and scaring her shitless. But her family is totally made up. Yay.

You know you're a sicko when you watch Hellsing at your nana's house. You know you're in good company when your nana sits down and watches it with you. And totally gets into it…

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Three: Making Progress**

xxx

The library was where I found sanctuary. It was rigid and neat, the way I liked it, with the smell of new and old leather permeating every inch of the place. The carpet carried the fresh scent of paper, and the chairs were soft and malleable. It was massive, with the classic appearance of a library – two walls completely covered in books, with the middle dotted with desks and chairs and tables.

And the best part was the floor-to-ceiling window at the very end that let in the moonlight the same way Sir Hellsing's office windows did. I instantly tabbed the place as my favorite room in the Manor. I spent almost every waking moment in there, reading up on vampires and the art of battle.

The only place I was in more than the library was the barracks. Seras spent a good chunk of her time teaching me what she knew as a police officer; mostly things about pressure points and restraints. She started teaching me how to shoot again, starting with a rifle with a scope and then slowly working me up to a pistol.

But it was Alucard who taught me about my third eye.

xxx

"You're getting better," Seras said happily when she found that my most recent shot had landed only an inch or two away from the center of the paper target-man's chest. I could get a headshot with a little effort now.

Sighing a little shakily, I let my tired arms fall. The pistol in my hands had made Seras a little envious at first, as she said that Walter kept giving her _massive_ cannons instead of a regular gun. But I was jealous of her; the _Harkonnen _could have taken out a battleship with only two rounds. The _Jackal_ could have done it with one.

"I still suck," I grumbled, putting a piece of hair behind one of my ears. I unraveled my messy bun and tied it back again into a new, neater one.

"You've only been at it for two days," Seras giggled, letting me drop the pistol and rub my sore hand. My index finger had developed a strong hatred for me in the past few days. "You can't expect results in such short a time."

"If I could learn to use my third eye, I wouldn't need to practice." I did what Seras had taught me and reloaded the pistol, swiftly ejecting the spent magazine. At least I could do that right.

"You'll get it in time." Seras nodded in approval at my speed while I reloaded. Then she cocked her head, listening to something I couldn't hear. "I'll be back in a second. Master's calling me."

Without another word, she left, her master always before me. I respected that, even coveted it. When she left I continued to practice, trying to imagine that this paper man was coming to kill me, that he was a danger to everyone. He was going to harm Sir Hellsing, the woman who was kind enough to take me in.

I _wanted_ to learn how to use my third eye, and I was willing to practice until sunrise to do it. I only had until tomorrow evening to shoot like a true vampire, or I was going to have to go up in front of the Queen and tell her that I was absolutely useless. I would do anything to learn, even if I meant begging Alucard to help me.

Suddenly my eyes widened as a ghostly form ran into the shooting range, screaming in fear as some unseen monster chased it. I saw a head of beautiful golden curls, eyes as brown as mine had once been, a little pale face streaked with tears. Behind the form came a horrible parody of the target man.

_Claire_. I tried to make a move to scoop up my niece, forgoing any questions as to how she had gotten in and why. All I knew was that she was being chased. But my legs were glued to the floor, and I could only move the upper half of my body.

Claire was sobbing now, trying to escape the paper target. It was a grotesque thing, with only a mouth full of jagged teeth to give it any frightening qualities. But it moved fast, its 2D legs able to move swiftly.

_She's going to die, yearling,_ said a voice inside my head. _Your pathetic little niece is going to be destroyed very easily, by such a stupid monster. _

I tried shooting, but I couldn't see clearly, and I might hit Claire. Struggling once again to move, I found that the pressure keeping my legs in place had increased to a painful level.

_Stop panicking. Take the shot_.

"But I might hit her," I sobbed, watching as the disturbing paper-monster neared my niece.

_That's a pitiful excuse. You are a vampire, act like one. Or do you want your niece to die?_

Claire shrieked as the paper-monster's claw-like hand descended upon her.

I fired without actually thinking about it. I could just see my shot going straight through the monster's head, tearing a hole large enough to take up the entire bull's-eye.

My knees gave out as I was forced back into the real world, and I found myself still at the slot in the shooting range, with the few soldier's near me staring shamelessly as I sobbed my heart out. Tears of blood stained my cheeks as Claire disappeared, leaving only the immobile paper target, with a massive hole in its head.

The voice in my head had been Alucard standing beside me. His sneer grew when I put my head in my hands and sobbed, blood leaking through my fingers. Hearing my crying, Seras ran back into the room and knew then and there that she had been tricked into leaving the room.

"You are feeble, yearling," Alucard said. "Even the Police Girl was able to pick up on the concept of the third eye with ease."

_It's not my fault,_ I wanted to scream_. _But I kept my mouth shut until the vampire sire had left the room, letting Seras comfort me.

It _was_ my fault.

xxx

"Willow, this is not going to cheer you up," Seras said as I stumbled across the Hellsing estate, towards the other target practice range.

The one meant for Alucard.

Actually, it was meant for adepts, and if there was ever a master as shooting shit from really far away, it was Alucard. Fortunately, the nosferatu was no where to be found, probably off terrifying school girls. He didn't need to practice, unless he was all hyped up and needed to _pretend_.

"No, but its going to be an unhealthy way for me to vent," I growled, cocking the pistol slide on my gun. "I want the target back. _Far_."

Seras sighed and signaled to the guard in charge of slinging the paper target men. Soon the target was nothing but a white spec that even my vampiric eyes had trouble seeing.

I calmed my pulse, which was just annoying without the feel of a beating heart, and relaxed my stance. I tried using the same tactic as before, and now that I knew the feel of the third eye it came to me easily. My vision raced ahead and I saw the target as if it was standing right in front of me.

I fired – and hit the neck instead of the head.

"_Damn_," I cursed, lowering the pistol. Even with the third eye, my aim sucked.

"You're getting much better," Seras said comfortingly, her comment similar to the one she had made earlier that night. "I wouldn't have been able to hit it from this distance."

Great. I was far-sighted. I would be able to see my death early, but miss when I shot at it. Trying to control my anger, I bit my lip and tried again.

This time the bullet went through a shoulder, even though I had been aiming for its heart. I spat out a string of words that made Seras blush and flipped the safety on before tucking the pistol in my belt. I made a mental note to get a different uniform; I hated confronting Alucard in this thing. Seras made it look easy when she ran in it.

I practiced for a while longer, eventually bringing the target closer. I found that my aim began to fail at around two hundred meters. Closer than that and my third eye worked fine, and I usually hit where I meant to. It was a dramatic difference from yesterday, and my mood was slightly brighter now because of it.

At least, my mood was bright until I remembered that the Queen was coming. Tonight. And all I had to wear was a stripper outfit with the Hellsing patch on its shoulder. I was going to be expected to kneel.

This uniform was not made for kneeling. Hell, it wasn't even made for chasing vampires. Seras was either insanely skilled, or insanely brave.

I needed Walter…_now_.

xxx

It only took two minutes to find Walter. I had grown to rely on my sense of smell during the last few days. I could block out the usually meaningless chatter that my hearing picked up, but smell was always needed and welcome. It made roaming the halls more interesting. I could tell where Sir Hellsing had been by the stench of her cigars, or where Seras was by following her earthly vampire smell. Everyone smelled different; even Alucard reeked strongly of death and gunpowder.

Walter was a strange motley of smells, so much so that he was enjoyable to be around solely because of this. He smelled like tea and peppermint, leather from the library, and of a strange metal, which was almost unnoticeable. He carried a faint trace of Sir Hellsing's cigars everywhere, and I found it remarkably easy to follow the butler's scent down into a meaningless hallway on the second floor.

He was dusting when I came up behind him.

"Hello, Miss Brenner," Walter said, his voice betraying amusement.

I blushed. "I was doing it again, huh?" I muttered, feeling stupid. "Hunting you…"

Walter stopped dusting long enough to bop me on the head with the duster (_oh no he didn't…_). I made a tiny squeak and shifted my weight uneasily. He knew just how to make me feel like a little girl. "You were doing what comes naturally. And no vampire can sneak up on _me_. Even Alucard has trouble doing it." Walter eyes me curiously. "Did you want something?"

Now that the moment had come, I felt the nervousness flood through me. "I…I don't have a thingy." Ah hell; that could mean anything.

Walter covered his smile politely, but I heard the mirth in his voice. "Willow, that answer isn't descriptive enough."

I flushed harder and squeaked out the words. "I don't have anything to wear tonight." Blushing was something I had retained from being a human, and I found that I did it more as a vampire.

The butler looked at me, puzzled. "What about your uniform?"

My head snapped up, all the blood rushing out of my face. "You can't seriously believe that I want to go in front of the _Queen_ looking like this!?" I rasped, tugging the skirt down for emphasis. "You have to help me! Anything would do. A t-shirt and jeans even! Just don't make me kneel in_ this_!"

There was nothing poor Walter could do to keep his laughter hidden. Reducing it to a kindly chuckle, the butler said, "I'll see what I can do. But there're no promises."

I found myself hugging him, finding that he was another person in the mansion that was a foot taller than me. "Thank you, Walter. I'll try to stop stalking you from now on." With a new bounce in my step, I ran out of the all-but-useless study.

Walter was still chuckling.

xxx

I had an hour before I had to start getting ready, as it was six and the meeting was at eight. As a vampire, I only needed ten minutes to get dressed, so I had time to kill.

The shooting range was out of the question, as I was too nervous to really concentrate and would probably kill someone. And Seras wasn't here to cheer me up, as she and Alucard were somewhere in the basement. If I tried, I could hear her wailing about something.

I decided to wander when I noticed unfamiliar smells mingling with the traces of Sir Hellsing's cigars. Upon asking a passing patrol, I was told that the Convention of Twelve was meeting early, before the Queen came, to discuss something. I hoped it wasn't me.

I started to walk around outside, exploring the grounds and hiding in the shade. I hadn't gotten a chance to yet, as Alucard was usually prowling around if he had nothing better to do. They were immense, with springy green grass. There wasn't much ornamentation, but then again, a lawn reflects the owner, and Sir Hellsing was anything but ornamental. Not the kind of person to have pink plastic flamingos and garden gnomes. But the grass was healthy and thick and filled my head with its pleasant smell.

Distantly thinking about what I was going to say to the Queen, I wandered to the high stone wall and started following it. The grass wasn't overgrown near the wall, wasn't choked by weeds, and had no stray clippings. I silently praised whoever cut the grass.

Suddenly, I caught a strange, hostile scent; mingling with it was an abnormally strong smell of blood. Too strong.

I bee-lined for the smell, and found myself at the main gate. Upon reaching it I was hit full in the face with the earthy stink of vampire. No, vampire_s_.

Warily, I jumped up to the top of the wall, dangling there by the tips of my fingers. I peeked over the wall in time to hear this:

"Ciao."

I held back a gasp as the remaining guard was shot down in a storm of bullets.

Thinking quickly, I took a mental picture of the intruders. The first, a tanned youth with gold piercings and a beanie with an eye on the front. His language consisted of the word 'fuck' and carious other vulgarities. The second was a tall, slim man in colors of white (stark white, off white, freaking eggshell white) with blond hair; like a male Sir Hellsing painted white. He looked like he had better things to do than shoot down guards.

And behind them stood a small army of ghouls. Armed ghouls.

Memorizing their faces, I dropped down and sprinted for the Manor.

xxx

Kana: I was _not_ watching Bolt while writing this…nopenope. Was not. Okay, yes I was…and then I wanted Hellsing. Does that seem…a little disturbing…? (nopenope). Thank you Voices. Do you want that strawberry Pop tart now? (Yes).

My Voices have Canadian accents.

Review Responses: (PS: I wrote these while I was bored at 2 AM before my state exams – the FUCK, we're sophomores… - and I was delusional. I thought I was damn witty though)

DarkSandHanyou28: Luff to you too. And yes, all reviewers are teh epic. Except for my friend Vaults, but she NEVER reviews. I need to kill her. It will also be teh epic.

Kiseki no Tenshi: What 'chu talkin' 'bout? Alucard respects NO ONE. Silly. He doesn't even respect himself. That's why he wears that ridiculous hat. Though I love the hat. I want to have its little hat babies. Yes. Mmmn, hat babies.

BlazingMidnightRain: Don't get offended by the sarcasm. I mean it in the best way possible. Cynicism is my bread and water, you know? Probably explains why I can't make a character that ISN'T at least a little bit of a wiseass. And don't worry, Alucard won't eat her. That would be _SO_ Cleverplane. GOD. (throws hands up into the air and sulks). I blame them.

Rambonata: Long composition was epic. I wrote about George RR Martin's books. I deserve a 5 (out of 5. Strange way of grading…you see a 5 or a 4 and go OH SHIT and then you're like…oh, yay). We all forget our passwords – 'cept me. I have it tattooed onto my forearm. (Insert the lulz).

Cannot fathom a PenName: You haven't had my nana's fried tomatoes. Seriously, damn good stuff, and I hate tomatoes. And then she puts them on toasted French bread and with the olive oil and the _pickles, the pickles_ (…o.o) _ANY_way. (laughs nervously) Actually, my characterization of Alucard was inspired by _Tattoo_.

And just for the hell of it: LOLZ WE LUV YOU WILLOW YES SECKS! WAPEWAPEWAPE! Alucard would never say that. If _I_ was writing the Mary Sue fic, he'd rape her twice in her coffin, then they'd fuck like monkeys on nitrous oxide for the next four hundred chapters (which would only be forty words each XD). And it would be angry sex, cause it would probably have self-insert undertones. Yay.

DraminaMurray: I believe I responded to you, because I care. (hugs reviewer) – can you tell I have very few reviewers? Much more love to go around –

Koori Youkai Hime: Watching House and James Bond makes me make up silly things. You bet yer ass it does. Oh God, if I made Willow a weakling…I'd kill her myself. Actually, next chapter, she kicks a little ass – but not too much. Only a _little_. She can't shoot, but she is…I dunno, clean? She uses her OCD powers of DOOM. Go Mommy Dearest, GO! BEAT THEIR ASS WITH THAT WIRE HANGER!

SinsXIII: Thank you! I try _very_ hard to keep them in character. Integra is the hardest, while Seras is the easiest. Alucard's…well, lets just say he's so hard to keep in character that while I try to do it he speaks in strange alien tongues while he mocks me and its _suicide_. (Okay, no more Halo for me). And Willow is at the bottom of the Hellsing Household (yes, it needs caps). There's Integra, Alucard (as her bitch), Walter (as Alu's bitch), Seras (as everyone's bitch), Geese, the maids, the servants, the dust that dares to collect on Alucard's fedora, Willow.

End Responses

Dammit, Penname's response made me all hyped-up. (Goes flipping through her Hellsing manga for Vladicard, who is the sexiest thing since buttered toast) Mmmn…Vlad _and _buttered toast…Now I'm hungry too…Sad Kana is sad.

Newsflash (a couple hours later): Kana is happy again. Kana found her erotic fantasy novels and brought them with her to her state exams. State exams went swimmingly, and after Kana had those novels…Kana accidentally drooled on her desk D: Gena Showalter people. Yes. Keeps me sane. Love that woman and her freaking awesome characters.


	5. Making Malice

Kana: YOU! Yes you, reader! Go watch Australia! But only after you've read and reviewed, because it's a _long_ ass movie. And then I want you to saw off your left arm to share a tent with Hugh Jackman. Mmmn, Hugh Jackman. (I've been all drooly over actors lately. Perhaps the wrong ones – for my age group. I _should_ be drooling over people from…I dunno, those musical high school thingies or – god save literature – _Twilight_. But nope, I gots Wolverine on my mind).

**Notes on the Holy Scripture:** My dialogue isn't _exactly_ as it is in the manga or OVA, cause what fun would that be? But the same stuff happens, just from the viewpoint of Willow, instead of in third person. Just so you know, I have my Hellsing 2 manga open on my head, from which I take various thingies from in case I'm a little ditzy about a certain scene. My dog's giving me a funny look; silly little Nazi doggie. Go eat Luke. And yes, I am a moron for accidentally putting in the _Jackal_ and the _Harkonnen_ too early. So shoot me…

**Disclaimer:** I wish I owned Hellsing. If I did…it would be awesome. But I don't. Kohta Hirano does, and he is awesome. Let's all bask in his awesomeness. _Awe_some. Hell, I don't even own some of the dialogue in this chapter. _Bugger_.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Four: Making Malice**

xxx

A vampire can go thirty or forty kilometers per hour if they felt like it, and keep going like that for a few hours. If they're scared, they might be able to reach fifty.

Running back to the mansion with a hoard of ghouls with guns after me, I hit sixty.

My instincts had taken over, reducing me to an animal with only one thought – _run_. My legs shook and I felt like I was dragging extra weight, but I kept going, zooming past everything I had been admiring and trying to get as far from the objects of my terror. Pain ripped through me as one of the vampires caught sight of me and reacted by taking a shot at me. Blood soaked the front of my uniform.

I burst into the mansion, dripping blood and snarling like a monster. The first guards to see me raised their guns out of fear, but when they saw me sink to the floor and clutch my wound, they came to my aid.

"No!" I said as one of them tried to touch the bullet wound. The pain was horrible, but it did not contain the burn of silver. I knew I would live; but the _pain_. "There are…vampires. They have ghouls! Enough ghouls to take us out! You need to warn Sir Hellsing!" Bracing against the wall, I hauled myself up, whimpering.

While the men rushed off to find a security room, I caught the sounds of gunfire.

The intruders were getting closer. They had forgotten about me, thinking me human and crippled, and had started to kill off the guards outside.

_Calm down_, I told myself, my hand resting on the pistol I had been given. It rested on my hip, a comforting reminder that vampires and ghouls would go down when shot with silver bullets. I had never thought that that would be comforting. _You need to get to the basement. There's safety in numbers. _

Suddenly, I started to gag, my stomach quivering and heaving. I could feel the bile rising in my throat, and I doubled over and vomited up a puddle of blood and a bullet. Trembling from the strain, I knelt there as my wound healed itself slowly, leaving only a stain of red on my otherwise yellow uniform.

"Dammit," I mumbled, getting to my feet. I used the wall to steady myself, keeping a hand there in case I stumbled. My blood was surging, my fangs were extended, and all of my senses were at their peak. It made my skin tingle and my fingers ache.

I ran a hand through my hair and found that my bun had come loose. Feeling every fiber of hair, I gathered up the wavy brown mass and tied it back into a tight knot. Then I smoothed out my uniform as best I could, took several deep breaths, and stilled my breathing.

"Calm down," I said to myself again, standing up straight. "This is no time to lose your head."

The dreadful moan of ghouls and the sound of gunshots were coming closer, but I refused to stumble down to the basement like this. I steadied myself further, took one more large breath, kicked off my shoes, and then rushed forward.

Running was easy when one was a vampire. The simple decorations of the hallway flew by, doors came and went in the blink of an eye, and corners were turned on a dime. My bare feet slapped against the hard wood of the floors, and I gave up on pumping my arms in favor of streamlining myself.

And I screamed the entire time.

"_Ghouls!_" I shrieked, my voice carrying through walls as I covered every floor. "_Ghouls in the Manor!"_

I raced down the stairs, little more than a blur, and found myself in the basement. _Excellent_. Jogging around, I soon caught the scent of Seras and, more faintly, Alucard. And gunpowder, a shit-load of gunpowder.

Following the smell into Seras's bedroom, I made note of her new coffin, and of the _Harkonnen _that was resting on top of it. There was a blissful absence of Alucard, but there was also an air of strangeness in the room.

Looking up, I saw Seras trying to wiggle her way into an air duct.

"What are you doing?" I asked, making Seras squeak and drop a few inches. Her legs scrambled, and she let out a grunt.

"We have to get to Sir Integra," Seras ground out, still struggling to fit into the air duct. It was her breasts…

Walter, standing below her and waiting patiently for her to wiggle into the duct, turned to me. The smell of metal was dominant and strongest around him, shocking me. I caught a glimpse of silver in his hands, but it was gone before I could inspect it further. "We have gotten word of the intruders and are heading to the conference room to attack them head on."

"Via the air ducts?" I asked.

"For nostalgic purposes," Walter grinned, and, noticing that Seras had successfully wriggled into the air duct, nodded to me. "Alucard is going to attack up form the basement. Do you wish to follow him?"

_Good god no._ I swallowed nervously. "No, I will follow you guys. I'd only get in his way."

"Great!" Seras said, her voice echoing out of the air duct. "But please hurry! This is very uncomfortable!"

"Right!" I jumped up, finding it much easier to crawl up the air duct with my sinewy body. When I had been human, my upper body strength had been poor, but now I found it almost too easy to do the things that had once embarrassed me, like push ups or pull ups. There was a ridiculous urge to go back to my old high school gym teacher and just _kick some ass_.

"Oh, Miss Brenner!" Walter's voice rose up from below, and there was a dull _thunk_ as something was tossed in behind me. "I have those clothes you asked me for!"

"Awesome!" I said sarcastically, trying to maneuver around and grab the clothes. I planted the heel of my hands on them and slid forward, crawling with my knees. "And Walter…"

"Yes, Miss Brenner?" The elderly butler outshined both me and Seras by nimbly hoping into the duct.

"Keep your eyes closed. If you start looking up my skirt, I will throw all of the tea into the pool out back." I knew Walter would never do that (even if he did it accidentally, he would probably hang himself) but it was always better to be safe than sorry.

Walter's chuckling echoed in the duct.

xxx

"Stop," Walter said, shuffling behind us. "Listen."

Seras and I stopped our strange slide-wiggle-crawl movement that we had going on, and we strained to hear. It wasn't so hard once we held our ragged breathing, and shifted past Walter's heartbeats.

"_We're gonna die…_" someone was whimpering, and I knew that it was definitely not Sir Hellsing.

"Right here," I said, and Seras knocked out a panel in the ceiling. It hit someone in the face, probably the whiner.

Seras yelped as he fell suddenly out of the duct, landed on an unfortunate soul, and took both of them to the floor.

"Smooth," I muttered, slipping out of the air duct and landing painfully on my knees before toppling over the table.

Walter once again kicked our asses by expertly falling headlong out of the duct, landing on his hands, and up-righting himself before we had time to blink. I doubted his gentleman's nature allowed him to show off, but if he was doing it, he was doing it in the most polite way possible.

I looked around, feeling very vulnerable as Walter told Integra of the 'plan'. Catching bits and pieces of the butler talking, I felt most of the eyes of the Convention on me.

"…a scene from hell…"

Seras and the lone, craven Convention member stood, the man a little put-off at having been sat on. I would have been too, but at least Seras is a fun-sized vampire. Now, if _Alucard_ had fallen on him, then his neck might have snapped. The nosferatu was at least two meters tall, probably more. Damn, I was drifting again.

"…the end for us?"

"No…first Sir Hellsing had to deal with…hardly a pinch…"

Wow, my mind was definitely in the gutter during those moments. I was thinking more along the lines of _'damn, those ghoul-sounds are getting awfully close'_ and '_my stomach hurts a little'_ (because it was still sore after being shot). I noticed the way Sir Hellsing nearly inhaled her cigar smoke, which was a big no-no and would probably lead to a bad hacking cough later if she didn't calm down.

"…will be an ambush…won't let one of the vermin escape…"

But Sir Hellsing was the calmest out of all of us. In fact, only the smoking of her cigar betrayed any nervousness. That and the way her forehead glistened in the harsh light of the conference room.

While Walter spoke, I quickly changed into my new clothes, too fast for any of the Convention members to see. I had been given a red jumper and black slacks. Deeming it a life-saver, I took my belt from my old uniform and put it around my waist, along with the pistol I had been given. My feet were still bare, but that was becoming a habit.

"…for a _Hellsing_ education can be."

Walter finally stopped reassuring Sir Hellsing of how badly we were going to kick ass – though he would have never used those exact words – and let her give us a hint of a smile. It was more like a smirk, and her lips only twitched a little, but it made her look a lot more friendly. And it was freaking _amazing_.

"_Excellent_."

The butler nodded, and his smirk was much more sinister. Again there was a flash of silver light around him, and I saw the wires that looped around the whole room, quivering in anticipation.

As a vampire, I was kind of scared of him.

It only took five minutes of me and Seras pressing our sensitive ears to the wall before we heard the tell-tale sound of a door being kicked open.

"He's out of Sir Hellsing's office," I said reproachfully. After listening to the bastard rifle through Sir Hellsing's things and trash her best cigars, I was feeling a little pissy. I stiffened at the sound of the vampire talking about necrophilia. "Um…ew…"

"I second that ew." Seras shivered and took her ear away from the wall. I followed suit a moment later.

This was Walter's cue. He gave us a wink and slowly opened the door to the hallway. Then he walked out, all smooth and ready to beat some ass with the dignity and grace of an English gentleman.

While Walter intimidated and slowly decimated their ranks, Seras and I snuck out the door behind him and used the shadows to cover us. Seras wasn't aware of it, but the shadows seemed to be attracted to her, giving us more camouflage. I wondered if it was a conscious reaction, or just the darkness crawling to her subtle power like moths looking for a fix of light.

"…what the _hell_ is that?" I whispered softly as Seras pulled out the massive cannon that I had seen in her bedroom, not a half hour before. It had just been sitting in the room at the end of the hall – I suspected Alucard.

"Walter said it was called the _Harkonnen_," Seras mumbled, turning a little red. "I guess I'm to be backup." I already knew that first bit. And I stated soon that I knew the second.

"Well, we already knew that," I said, my hand brushing against the pistol on my belt. (_See?_) My new pants made me feel more protected, so much so that I only felt a tiny knot of fear instead of the annoying seed that was usually in my gut, ready to bloom. "But I doubt I will be able to do much damage with this thing from so far away."

"I'm sure you can do a fine job if you use your third eye," Seras chirped.

I smiled warily, watching as Walter totally tore through some ghouls and dodged a volley of gunfire. He was quicker than I was. "Thanks. But I think I would be more helpful up front. You just use that bazooka, okay? Don't worry."

Seras nodded stiffly, more than ready to kill the vampires who had invaded our home. And a home to a vampire was something that, once found, was guarded and protected.

Seras got her signal, and since she had set up the Harkonnen, she fired.

My eyes widened as the round – which was as long as my forearm – blasted through the ghouls' ranks and took out no less than five of them. Seras, who was a shocked as I was, robotically tossed the empty shell and loaded 'the red one'.

Before she could fire again, I was heading for the ghouls. At least I had the advantage of speed over normal vampires; I had always been quick, but it had been limited to sprinting. Now that I had the stamina of a vampire I found that I was faster than even Seras, but only by a little and even that had been obtained through practicing with a handful of pence.

I couldn't win for losing…

But I was able to avoid Walter's strange wires and dive in at the hoard of ghouls. Nearly floating with the speed of my jumps – as I was frantic to keep myself higher than the monsters – I shot at a few of them, using my third eye to accurately perform three headshots.

Because my attack startled them, the ghouls accidentally huddled in a tighter ball in the center. I skipped away as I heard the horrific boom of the _Harkonnen_, and I was safely next to Walter. The blast round hit the clutch of ghouls and exploded into a million shards of shrapnel that, at the very least, knocked back a good dozen of them. If it had been a regular band of human, they would be dead. All of them. But since a ghoul could still go on even when it had a piece of metal in its brain, 'the red one' was less effective.

But it still rocked.

"No one mentioned two extra bitches!" the tan young man said, running at Walter. No, he was getting _closer_, for a better shot.

I made a move and shove Walter out of the way, but the butler was already avoiding the barrage of bullets, expertly dodging them. The ones he couldn't dodge he sliced in half with his wires. When the smoke cleared and the vampire started to gloat, Walter's gaze had the intent to kill.

At that moment, a streak of yellow zipped by and slammed into the hostile vampire. It took me a few seconds to see that it was Seras, with her forearm pressed into the vampire's jugular, her other hand keeping his arms in a painful position beside his back. Her knees were jammed into his thighs, and with his face in the carpet, the vampire's cursing was thankfully muffled.

"Are you alright Walter?" Seras asked.

"Indeed," Walter said, a little sheepish, "though I daresay I don't have it the way I used to." I supposed _it_ was the ability to cube vampires.

"What the _hell_ was _that_!?" the vampire whined.

"Wherever did you learn that technique?" Walter asked, a little dumbfounded. The vampire's question was ignored.

Seras grinned, not even fazed by the wiggling vampire underneath her. Very butch. I liked it. "Well, I _was_ a police girl…"

I stood in the sidelines, warily watching the vampire. Every so often he looked like he might just break Seras's hold and my pulse would race, but then the little police girl would dig her knees deeper into his thighs, and the vampire would choke out a 'fuck'. It was amazing that such a tiny woman could hold him down, but I guess her training coupled with her vamp strength made her a formidable foe in hand-to-hand combat.

"Nobody said that there would be _three_ vampires," the young man said through gritted teeth. "And nobody said they had anything like _you_," he nodded towards Walter. "Who the _hell_ are you!?"

Walter completely ignored this question and started asking his own. "You are not alone in this. Who's pulling your strings? What's your objective?"

The captive grunted a little, and then said, "I'll tell ya if ya kiss my ass – _uck!_" His eyes were covered with a film made of bloody tears of pain when Walter slammed the heel of his boot down onto the vampire's hand.

"One more try," Walter said, "but the next time I'm going for the _left_ one."

"Alright!" the vampire said, flexing his injured hand. "We were only told two things! 'Destroy the Royal Order of Protestant Knights and the Convention of Twelve; and confirm the death of the pet vampire Alucard!'"

"We?" I cut in, a fang nibbling my lower lip. Did that mean the ghouls? No, ghouls were zombies, unthinking, inhuman beasts with only the intent to do their master's bidding.

A horrible, chattering cackle came from the vampire, and he glared up at us. "Right now my big brother's kicking the undead shit out of Alucard."

Seras's eyes were the size of plates when I started to run for the basement. They didn't need me there; but if Alucard was truly getting his ass kicked, I wanted to at least be able to do something. If anything, he might stop looking at me directly to spare me the horror of seeing the murder in his eyes.

This time I was running for someone else's life, rather than my own. I didn't feel the adrenaline, and my pulse stayed dead. But there was this tinge, this sense of need that pulled me forward.

Ah crap. I wanted to please the insane nosferatu whose greatest joy would come from tearing out my heart and giving it to Sir Hellsing. Alucard would find no greater pleasure than scalping me by pulling out small locks of hair, or skinning me inch by inch, or putting me in the sun and watching me fry. He was sick, twisted, and had a mind that would make a serial killer start babbling.

And I wanted to make him happy…now who's the twisted one?

xxx

_Okay…follow the dead Hellsing bodies and you'll find the big vampire shootout. Good plan_, I told myself as I stepped over the bloody, cold corpses of long dead Hellsing officers. It was like a _really_ sick version of 'follow the yellow brick road'. Get it? Cause their uniforms were yellow…

God, I'm becoming morbid.

I thrummed my fingers against the opposite forearm and padded along, jogging at nearly twenty miles an hour. But in an enclosed space like the Manor, it only made hallways go by faster, and did nothing for the turns.

But I didn't get lost. I could smell the stench of blood and death on the first floor, and when I entered Alucard's chambers via the door (there was a hole in the wall nearby) it hit me like a tour bus. It was a wave of hot, stale air that absolutely reeked of everything that was vile – the most prominent was blood, but I could smell the acridness of other bodily fluids, probably bile.

Once I had recovered from the initial wave of air, the sound of gunfire came to me. And not the little _patta-patta _of rifles, but the jarring blasts of a vampire's gun.

Knowing that I would get nowhere by panicking, I calmed myself down, something I had always been good at doing. Big test? Deep breaths. College acceptance letters being opened? Reassure yourself. Claire asking where babies come from? Call Timothy. Vampires having a western showdown just mere yards from where you're standing? Hide in the shadows and strain your senses.

It takes a little skill and nerve to do that last one. And maybe the one before it.

I stood near a wall that was colder than I was, and wondered if Alucard enjoyed the cold. But I put that thought aside before it really had time to establish itself and let my eyesight and hearing take hold of me. My pupils engulfed the red of my irises as they strained to take up as might light as possible, and my ears heard only a sharp ringing before leveling out again.

I could see two forms in the darkness, one sitting and the other dancing around to dodge the bullets that bounced off walls and the floor like insane hummingbirds. They sounded like little _plinks_ when they ricocheted, like ice dropping into a tin pail, and the sound of blood splattering across a surface was a prominent companion to the dull _thunk_ of an impact. Alucard's dead scent was further away than the stranger's, which meant he was the one sitting; and the one taking so many shots to the torso that his body must've looked like cheese.

A bullet hit the wall above me, just centimeters from the top of my head. Even though it missed me, I still felt the sharp sting of silver. That was not an ordinary Hellsing bullet – that was a bullet made from a cross that's hung in a church and been blessed. That was an Alu-bullet.

Which meant that he had seen me. Which also meant that he even had the _time_ to notice me. Which meant he was probably going to kill me. At least, after he killed the direct threat to his Master. Dammit, and that meant that he didn't need my help.

Just so you know, my hopes make a _whooshing_ sound when they get flushed down the loo.

I fought to stifle a gasp, but it came out anyway. The intruder vampire heard it, and his head started to flick my way.

"Magnificent," Alucard suddenly said, his voice eerily loud after all the crossfire. "_Excellent _reflexive ability."

Dropping into a crouch, as I could feel the hairs on my arms stand on end slightly – meaning that my body unconsciously knew Alucard was being freaky – I wondered why he had spoken. Perhaps to take the other vampire's attention away from me. Perhaps to keep my death to himself. Most likely he was bored as hell after all the meaningless shooting.

"Save it!" the intruder said, raising one of his Garand rifles.

But Alucard was too far gone to notice anything but a challenge. "I haven't had this much fun in _ages_. This is great! I bet you're even higher than category A."

The other vampire scoffed and took a step back, as if he was considering something. But I saw his lips mouth something in the darkness; 'I can beat him'.

Then something odd happened. Alucard began to murmur to himself, though the intruder could obviously hear him. To me it was just garble. Except for the end. At the end I caught a bit of 'hold release until target is silenced'. I didn't know if that was good or bad…

Alucard's head fell to the ground. And not because someone cut it off, but rather because it…_felt like it_.

A horrible scream filled the air, and I realized it was me. I clamped a hand over my mouth, scuttling back as the nosferatu's body dropped as well, dissolving into a two-headed black hellhound that charged the enemy vampire, who was starting to hyperventilate. Its jaws snapped closed near the vampire's forearm with a _click_ that reminded me of doors locking.

The hellhound shrieked and Alucard's head laughed hysterically before becoming millions of centipedes that wriggled like a bed of snakes. Planting a heavy paw on the vampire's shoulder, the hellhound tried to bite off his head, failing when the doomed intruder lurched back.

Almost directly behind the intruder, I saw one of the hound's heads open, reveling Alucard's upside-down face, leering at both of us.

And that was when the arm came out of the hellhound's mouth and shot off one of the vampire's legs at the knee. He choked out a gurgle of pain, but it was drowned out by the hellhound's scream of pleasure.

I scuttled out of the way as the enemy vampire turned to run, hopping along like a hopeful cripple. I clutched at a wall, staring in fear as the saliva-soaked arm coming out of the hellhound's mouth shot off his other leg.

Just as the intruder reached the stairs I had just walked down. Alucard was playing with the vampire, like he played with me. No, it was worse.

The enemy vampire huddled there, trembling like any sane person would in the face of the parody of life Alucard had become.

"What the hell are you!?" he screamed hoarsely. I probably would have said that too as I stared up at Alucard, who had become a black mass with centipedes at its core and two hellhounds for limbs. And let's not forget the arm, pointing the Jackal right at the other vampire's heart.

Alucard appeared from the heart of the centipede mass, wearing a leather jumper and grinning like a sociopath. Because he _was_ a sociopath. "Come on! Fight back! Heal yourself, summon your familiars, change your body. The fun has only just begun! Its time to _fight_!"

He started screaming 'hurry' in a way that chilled me. As if he _wanted _to be hurt, to be shot, to feel the pain that had nearly crippled me before.

"Freak!" the other vampire shrieked, and that was the worst thing he could have done.

A part of me felt bad for the poor creature, who quivered with such fear in front of Alucard, who really wasn't playing fair. But another side, a dominating, callous side, just wanted him to die. He was groveling, insulting Alucard and thinking that it would save him. But it did nothing; it only made him die without dignity.

A bloodthirsty part of me waited anxiously for Alucard to kill the sniveling vampire.

Alucard's face was twisted into a vicious snarl of anger mixed with slight disappointment. "So _that's_ how you are. A worthless lump of _flesh_."

"Shut up!" the vampire screamed back. He was digging himself a deeper hole that was soon going to be his grave. "You're just some servant to the Anglican church! Nothing but a dog -!"

"A dog, huh?" Alucard smirked. "That makes you dog food." A massive hellhound grew out of his shoulder, its tongue lolling from its mouth, dripping saliva onto the floor.

With a happy yip, the hellhound sprang and dived for the vampire. It had no legs, nothing to help it along. Just Alucard's will to devour the intruder; and it did. While the vampire still screamed, the hellhound tore through him, and ended the meal by licking at the last dregs of blood on the floor.

With that out of the way, Alucard turned towards me. The blood around him was slowing seeping into his boots, and his hair was slick with the stuff. The large eye on his chest was staring at me, and – once it was done – so did the hellhound.

"What do you think, yearling?" Alucard asked, his form becoming more defined as he dismissed his hellhounds.

_I think I have something to shoot for_, I wanted to say, but I couldn't. I had passed out.

xxx

Kana: Whoot, exactly ten pages. (The actual story, not the meaningless author's notes I put in). This chapter was actually a little hard at the end, because I felt a little…odd doing the dialogue that's pretty much so badass it has its own Harley. And raise your hand if _you_ want your own hellhound, cause I do. And then pet day would be SO awesome. 'This is my doggie, his name is Alucard.'

(Sigh) being forced to go to church today. I'll be that strange kid in Tripp pants reading Hellsing and other obscene manga in the pews. Noobs.

Alucard's hellhounds are definitely puppies. His children would be puppies. PUPPEH!

Review Responses:

Koori Youkai Hime: Oh yes. But to quote a fat little Nazi; 'the fun has only just begun.' Mwaha-freaking-ha.

Kiseki no Tenshi: You gotta be real strong to survive anything Alucard throws at you. Like a tank. Willow could catch a tank. But not two. Alucard usually throws five.

BlazingMidnightRain: Alucard would kick the shit out of that dust. 'NO ONE touches my coffin – I mean my hat! Don't touch the hat!' Welcome for that image.

DarkSandHanyou28: Haven't you ever seen the first volume with the 'I don't see it' 'I _do'_ scene? Sexiest. Thing. Ever. And that's coming from the girl who hates movies with just big guns (though the Jackal is the best gun EVAH. Mmmn, smexy). And Alucard would not be above scaring little girls. He would probably find more joy in it. HAT BABIES. They would be very cute, but then one would be a girl and Alucard would be all 'dammit, wanted a BOY ;-;'

TaikeruSohma: I is _very_ hilarious – sometimes. Other times my humor is like eating a rice cake; dry and flaky. And no, nothing weird with Baskerville x Willow. Or Willow x Pip. Dun do that. It equals BAD sues. But…mmmn, Vladicard x Dark Walter. Oh yes. I see my new favorite pairing.

VampireEgyptian: If you're wondering why you feel wet, that's because my raspberry has made it over the internet. Pshaw. Not ALL my Hellsing fics are angst. In fact, I rarely write 'woe is me' fics anymore. :P And yes, I am a moron for accidentally putting in the Jackal and the Harkonnen too early.

End Responses

Another sleepover. Very tired today. Alucard needs to stop eating babies. Review or else Alucard is gonna eat his own hat babies, like bunnies do.

Easter tomorrow. I dunno…happy Easter? Happy Passover. Happy OMG-religious-day. Happy look-the-Easter-bunny-left-Gary-Oldman-in-your-basket day.

I celebrate the last one. His ass is mine.


	6. Making Allies

Kana: (sigh) I just had a twenty minute conversation with my mum about R rated movies. She found my copy(s) (DVD and VHS, whoot!) of Bram Stoker's Dracula and gasped at the rating, for _I_ am only _sixteen_ and they are rated _R_. Then I was dumb enough to show her my DVD of Interview with the Vampire…oh Cruise and Pitt, why was there no hot vampire sex…even though it's not in the book? But _seriously_, there was only…um…naked people. And since I own a pair of boobs I deserve to keep my movieh!

**Disclaimer:** Your mother doesn't own Hellsing. O-oh. Neither do I. I'm running out of sarcasm to put here…

Only bad part about Bram Stoker's Dracula? The Count's hair when he's old. And his disturbing furry-porn-gone-terribly-wrong forms. Makes me giggle and…oh Alucard, don't look (covers his eyes). But when he's _young_ again. Oh yes. Mmmn, Gary Oldman. You're the only reason why I went to see the Dark Knight, and the second reason why I stayed.

Harry was damn lucky to have him as his uncle. Yes he was.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Five: Making Allies**

xxx

At first, when I woke up, I was totally fine. I stretched, grunted, wiggled my toes and buried my nose into the dirt. I _liked_ dirt; I always have. As a little kid I made mud pies and sold them to my family for plastic pence. But the affinity had been lost when I entered secondary school and became a walking billboard for OCD.

I guess we all return to dirt one way or another.

But then there was this…_coldness_ around me. And I hadn't felt actual cold since I was turned, so this was a welcome change.

Until I found out that it was Alucard.

"Do you this to everyone?" I asked, feeling cheeky. This only happened when I first woke up, because all vampires woke up with the attitudes of bears coming out of hibernation. I bet even Mister Red woke up with the hairstyle of a metal head.

"Only to those I want to eat." We were all witty today.

Alucard grinned at me, and the events inside his room came barreling at me like a – forgive the pun – bat out of hell. The intruder vampire being devoured, the same way I knew I would be devoured. The trauma made my head spin, my pulse raced on fear alone. I always thought vampires had no heartbeat, but apparently their blood could still race, could still show fear.

"My master wants to see you," Alucard snickered, his malice-filled eyes boring down into me, wriggling into my chest like a worm into a corpse.

"Anything else?" I sat up, shaking my head until my hair decided to lie flat.

"That jumper looks dreadful."

"Thank you, queer little red man."

Alucard chuckled. "I'm going to eat your tongue first." And then he was gone, laughing into the stone.

I cursed myself. I was fond of my tongue.

xxx

It took me ten minutes to declare myself acceptable to see Sir Hellsing. This was accompanied by a lot of blind hair brushing, some hot water to the face, a gargling of salt water to get rid of that 'vampire smell' that came with drinking blood – mouth wash no longer worked – and changing into a fresh jumper and a new pair of slacks, which I had found next to the tray with me breakfast on the tea table. Walter was like a godsend. I'm naming a religion after him.

By that time I could hear Seras tittering outside my door, and her soft struggles of 'to come in or not to come in' were amusing. When I finally came out, she was inches from the doorknob, and the poor girl had to jump back to avoid being bonked on the head by the door.

"Hey," I said, feeling very perky. "What's up?"

Seras rubbed at the floor with the tip of her boot. "Sir Integra said that we have to meet her in the barracks."

"Why?" I asked. If Alucard had told this to me, I would have instantly responded with suspicion. But this was Seras, who saved puppies, so there was no cause for concern.

"Um…because…the mercenaries are here…" Seras was dillydallying, avoiding a certain subject.

I felt like someone who had left the movie for a few minutes to go to the bathroom. When I returned to my seat someone had died and the rest of the cast was mysteriously in Egypt. Dammit.

"Seras…" I began, knowing the inevitable was coming. "I passed out in Alucard's chambers. How long have I been unconscious?"

Seras stared at the ceiling, biting her lip. "Two days."

The news hit me like being slapped by a fish. Two days…a wasted two days spent sleeping off an event that I should have been able to brush off. Obviously everyone else had been able to. But _no_, not _me_, the little pathetic yearling.

God, I hated that name.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. This was turning into a trend. I feared that one day all my pent up anxiety was going to explode from me with the force of a tidal wave and I would go on a spree in which I bit of everyone's left ear and tied knots in Alucard's hair like a frigging faerie. And it would only take a few seconds for Alucard to notice the knots and do the same thing to me – only he would use my body instead of my hair. But I would want to die anyway, cause I would have just eaten human _ears_.

"Are you okay, Willow?" Seras snapped her fingers in front of me. They were so packed with gunpowder residue that she very nearly set them on fire and made them explode in my face.

"Fine," I sighed, tucking a piece of hair behind my head. Even though I hadn't washed since I was turned, I hadn't needed to brush my teeth, bathe, or comb my hair. And this was coming from me, who used to bathe twice a day and have a full set of dental hygiene gear. "Just a little…blind-sided."

"If you're blind-sided by this, then you might just make it through the day," said a disembodied voice. At first I thought it was Alucard, but then I realized it didn't sound manly enough, and that it also belonged to Sir Hellsing, who was behind me.

"I thought we were going to meet you in the barracks," I murmured, staring at my bare feet. I didn't like the boots that had been given to me. Vampires always had their quirks – Seras was squeamish, Alucard was as nutty as a squirrel in heat, and I didn't like shoes. The next installment to the group will eat baby placentas.

"I just came to ask you two to do a favor for me," Sir Hellsing said. As if we would (could) _refuse_. Alucard would probably be offended by this, because he has serious master issues. I suspect sexual tension. He wanted to nail her to the _wall._ Hard. With whip cream.

I needed to stop thinking about that before I gave myself bad – too late.

While my face contorted into a grimace of pure disgust, Sir Hellsing explained to us about the nature of the mercenaries.

"They are ignorant about vampires?"

Everyone – except Sir Hellsing, who had to be stalked by him twenty-four/seven – jumped a little as Alucard's head came out of the wall, like a buck on display. His smile reached from ear to ear, displaying his shark fangs and ruddy lips. Some poor defenseless blood sac had been devoured by him barely ten minutes ago.

"No, Alucard," Sir Hellsing snapped almost instantly. "You will not 'teach' them about vampires. I am going to have Seras and Willow do that."

"Why can't I…educate the men?" Alucard said, his smile never leaving his face. If anything it only became more malicious as his eyes narrowed lazily. He was probably imagining the meal the men would make.

"Because if that happened, then there would be no men," Sir Hellsing said with a tone that was usually reserved for talking about the weather. She turned her back to him just then, and Alucard scowled slightly at being ignored. "All I ask of you two is that you go in there before I do, just so that when I introduce you they have some doubt. After that, just follow my lead."

Now she turned back to Alucard, who lit up at the prospect of Sir Hellsing including him. But he was shot down like a seven-forty-seven when she said, "Walter will be watching you. Don't even _think_ about trying anything."

A look of annoyance flashed across Alucard's face, and he sank back into the wall. I didn't see Walter anywhere, but the smell of leather and metal cleaner was enough to tell me that the butler was nearby. No doubt that Alucard would lose an arm if he tried to enter the barracks.

Seras and I agreed to do what Sir Hellsing had asked of us, which sounded easy enough. Upon finding the door to the living area of the barracks, I led the way, as Seras was a bit nervous about sneaking past the men. I wasn't too nervous about them finding us; we hugged the walls, and with the shadows stalking Seras and the sheer volume of their conversation we made it to a corner easily.

"They smell like booze," I whispered, gagging a little. The smell of beer, wine, or pretty much any liquor had always made me sick when I was human, and now that my sense of smell was enhanced it was ten times worse.

The little police woman smiled. "Perhaps that will keep them from losing their head when they fight monsters."

"True." I wished I had my scarf, but it had been saturated with wild garlic and would had even made Alucard sneeze. The scars in my nose had healed after my first night sleeping in my crate of dirt, but the memory of the searing pain each breath brought had been enough to make me relish burning the damn thing.

We shared one of those little giggles that only girls can have. I didn't know whether my laugh was from hysteria or actual joy, but I was leaning hopefully towards the latter. I wanted to stop feeling so afraid all the time, wanted to feel at least a little happy without having the burn of fear in my chest.

These mercenaries were…ordinary people. People who didn't know about vampires or familiars or Alucard. Who hadn't been infected with the insanity this knowledge brought. Perhaps they would become like us, like the old soldiers, like Sir Hellsing and Walter. Seras was the only one left, the promise of dawn in the dead of night. She was like Alucard's teddy bear; cute and fuzzy and in the arms of a devil child.

But maybe some boozing, smoking, gambling, cussing, whoring mercenaries would cheer up the place.

Sir Hellsing came in around that time and made a dramatic entrance.

"That is how we work," she finished, letting the men chew on what she had just told them.

"That's barmy!" One of the men said, an odd fellow with a dusky orange braid laced around his neck like a piece of jewelry. "Vampires don't exist. Everybody knows that!"

I pursed my lips, hating everybody. Now that I was on the other side of the window, rather than on the outside looking in, I felt…smug towards those who were ignorant. Ugh, I was thinking like Alucard.

"Everybody is wrong," Sir Hellsing said. "You have simply been misinformed. This organization has been around for one hundred years, and we make sure to fly under the radar, to be blunt. We are the human race's only instrument of war against vampires." Her eyes flicked to us, and for a moment my pulse raced blindly. "This may be hard to understand, but _that_ is your enemy; the vampire."

Dozens of eyes followed her finger and found our faces. Just me and Seras, standing in a corner, a little taken aback, and slowly turning pink. We did _not_ look like vampires. Aside from my red eyes, the only thing that tabbed me as undead was my lack of reflection, my fangs, and perhaps my pale complexion. But there were no mirrors in this room, my mouth was clamped tight, and my skin could be contributed to my nocturnal habits. And Seras was even worse, with bright blue eyes, the face of a ten year old Catholic schoolgirl, and her 'rape me' innocent look on her face. Plus she had huge boobs, and no man was going to take her seriously because of them.

Damn, I wish she had let Alucard scare them. He could make marines shit bricks.

"You two are vampires?" the mercenary captain asked us, a little dumbfounded.

Seras and I looked at each other, both thinking the same thing. "Yes," we chorused. "We are."

Even without our vampiric hearing, we could tell the mercenaries were restraining their laughter. And it only took three seconds for them to pop.

"Did anyone else know that they would laugh?" I muttered, feeling stupid.

"Shouldn't master be doing this?" Seras asked, her face a little red.

"He wouldn't stop until they were dead," Sir Hellsing said. She tilted her head towards us, looking at us over her glasses. It reminded me of the way Alucard sometimes regarded people. "Well? Do something to make them believe us."

We had another of our silent conversations. "After you," I said, gesturing towards the still-chuckling men.

"Right." Seras put on her determined face that was about as cute as a baby panda and set off. She smiled up at the mercenary captain.

Then she flicked him. He yelped and recoiled, blood trickling down from a wound where Seras's fingernail-of-vampiric-steel had cut him. Gasping, he wasn't fast enough to evade another three or four flicks, in which the last sent him flying back into the throng of stunned men.

"The hell!" he choked out, looking like he had just gotten hit over the head with a metal pipe. A large purple smudge was forming, its center a gash the size of a penny. "All…all she did was poke me! But my head's spinning and – and – she's a freak! They both are!"

_Ouch_, I thought, feeling a little irritated. Seras and I shared a grin while Sir Hellsing was able to chastise the stupidity of the men with a few simple words.

"Like I said, they are vampires."

"You…" the captain started, wiping blood from under his nose. "They really are vampires?"

"Damn right they are."

Oh, I know that voice. Ethereal, deep, with a slight echo – like a British mobster speaking into a garbage can. That was Alucard's 'coming through the wall' voice, and was usually heard moments before –

Yup, Alucard came out of the wall, melting through it like he was going through nothing more than water. Some of us tensed at the sight of him (me and Seras), some of us grew a little twitchy (Sir Hellsing), and most of us gaped like fishes and make amusing squeaky noises (the mercenaries). But he was wearing a very calm expression, his hat covering the stop half of his face, looking at the men from the corner of his eye. He faced Sir Hellsing and smirked, as if to say 'the old man didn't last long.'

"They are among the lowest of the low," Alucard continued, his voice less ghostly and more threatening now that he was out of the wall. "But they are _obviously _vampires."

The appearance of Alucard had made little bubbles of fear form in the men's stomachs, and when he talked he proved himself to be real. This was the needle that popped the bubbles.

The men screamed. It was very comical, and I think I heard one of them shout 'it talks!' They scrambled to get far away from the scary man in red, but when they realized this just made Alucard chuckle they stopped and stared, trembling.

"They lack spines," Alucard drawled, his eyes seizing up the captain. He let his glasses slide down to the edge of his long nose, and once he was done effectively planting terror in all their hearts he turned his head towards Integra. "Will they be of any use to us?" Underneath this seemingly innocent sentence was the implication that the useless ones would be used as vampire fodder.

Like me.

Sir Hellsing gritted her teeth as if she was gnawing on a cigar. "Alucard!"

At this moment, Walter descended on his like one of God's angels – from the door, of course. "I'm sorry, my Lady. But I _tried_ to stop him."

"Walter…" Sir Hellsing looked longingly at him, as if he could save her from the nightmare Alucard was putting everyone through.

The butler gave her his smile, which was guaranteed to do the opposite of Alucard's sneer; make you feel warm and calm and happy, like alcohol only without the hangover. Or, you know, a grandfather.

"These matters aside," Walter reached into the inside of his waistcoat. "This was sent to us. I received it moments ago, leading to Alucard's escape."

"A letter?" Sir Hellsing took the crisp cream-colored envelope, her gloves a shade whiter than the paper. A splash of red acted as a seal.

"Notice the sender."

Turning the letter around, Sir Hellsing suddenly developed the expression of one who had just been shot. Alucard hovered behind her, his red eyes scanning the letter for what had distressed hid master. He probably wanted to eat it.

"The Vatican Section XIII?" Sir Hellsing's mien became a smirk that reminded me _way_ too much of the tall red vampire that was standing behind her like a lurid shadow. "Iscariot?"

My heart jumped into my throat as Alucard began to cackle.

xxx

Kana: I originally planned this to be longer and include the museum part, but I wanted to finish it. It seems using the manga as a reference is slowing me down, so I'm only going to use it loosely. Expect the dialogue to be sub-par compared to Hirano's awesomeness. Plus it's starting to look like a bad Hellsing novel.

As I write this part I'm duct tapped to a chair in my living room, being forced to watch Twilight. Save me. (blinks out h-e-l-p)

Review Responses:

Cannot fathom a PenName: O.O If I said you had weird preferences that would make me a hypocrite. Seriously. Me, Dracula, and a can of whip cream.

TaikeruSohma: A lot of people say I have addicting stories. I have the plots, just not the means to write them. And this will follow the manga (or OVA) plotline. I prefer to think of the original anime as nonexistent, as I have bad memories of flipping to it when I was a wee little innocent child. Chaos ensued. And Alucard should be hailed. Always. He is the King of Teh Smex.

Kiseki no Tenshi: (gets squashed by a tank) This is because of the time I accidentally dreamt Vladicard x Anderson and woke up screaming OTP, isn't it?

BlazingMidnightRain: As much as I know that _all_ of us would be hitched onto Alucard's bloody leg as he tore through a sea of Nazis, we must remember that poor Willow is not like us in the sense that she has no awesome Hellsing to read and fawn over. To her Alucard is about as appealing as her executioner. Though she does look at him as something to shoot for – namely to copy him in every way, like a fangirl, only with prospects – she is about as important to him as the dust on his hat. Woot.

Instead of clapping, I'd be dry humping his leg. While making little squeaky sound effects.

DarkSandHanyou28: LUFF TO YOU. And its _always_ look-the-Easter-bunny-left-Gary-Oldman-in-your-basket day, even though there are no baskets, and no Gary Oldman. _Dammit_. Then again, if that ever happened I wouldn't know what to do. Oh wait, yes I do! Break out the top hat and silly blue glasses! Mmmn.

whatisthisbusiness: (huggles) When I write OC stories I _always_ try to bring in people like you. The scorned, who have seen the horrors of the Mary Sues that suddenly pop up into the Hellsing universe, _dazzle_ everybody (with glitter), and eventually fuck poor Alucard into being uke. I used to _be_ one of those mindless idiots (le gasp) and now I'm just trying to make the world a better place :D Thank you for enjoying the difference Willow brings.

Koori Youkai Hime: Everyone wants a hellhound, dear. They should _sell_ them. Next to the baby hats.

VampireEgyptian: Walter is obviously the most talented of the Hellsing team. Everyone knows he and Alucard bopped like bunnies during WWII. And don't be ashamed of tackling random look-a-likes in the street. I do it all the time.

We will _fight to the death_ over the sexiness of Gary Oldman! Otherwise we're gonna become his three brides. And that would be a no-no, cause I'm needy and impatient. :3

End Responses (now that you are all thoroughly fucked up)

(THE GASP) Assassin's Creed _II_?! KANA WANTS! Kana wants _baaaad_! Because Altair was freaking SEXY! And he shoves people off ROOFS! And this new guy's _ITALIAN! _Wantwantwantwantwantwantwa -!

_- The authoress is currently out cold from her fan-gasm. Please wait until we can revive her – _

_Nine hours later. _

(Ahem) As you can see, I love Assassin's Creed.

_Anyway_! Let's all review in celebration of the new game! Even though we must wait until winter, it is _coming_! This winter shall be _awesome_. Hopefully new Hellsing OVAS, the latest in A Song of Ice and Fire (the book series that makes my English teacher go 'you are _actually_ able to read _that_?'), _sexy game to rape!_ Yesyesyesyesyes.

And remember the hat babies. Do it for the hat babies. And for the goal of ten reviews per chapter. Almost there people!


	7. Making Bowties

Kana: (Napping on her laptop) … (drools on her arm) Mmmmeeeh… (snorts and wakes up) _**OTP!**_AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!! DO NOT WANT! (wipes face) I think my mind's telling me something about Anderson x Vladicard…

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hellsing. I don't own anything. I do own my disturbing OTP dreams. (Now, OTP means Oh The Pain).

Whelp, it's that time of the year again. It's getting warmer, and for pretty much most of my adolescent life I was tuned for a new Harry Potter book during the summer, so my brain is telling me to _read Harry Potter_ _over again_. And that's seven books of pure evilness. And I never even read the seventh. All the deaths got spoiled by my friends cause I didn't preorder it. _DAMN them_.

- The authoress has stupidly forgotten that reading Harry Potter books makes her sob like a baby over Sirius and Lupin. Come back later. – …It's _true_. ;-; 'Nut kills fourteen babies in a murderous rampage' on the tele doesn't faze me at all, but if Sirius_ dies_ I start babbling until my mum finally gets that the sexy black-haired man was someone I liked. Oh…watching that movie with my family was a bad idea…

…Knowing me, this is going to make me have Sirius x Lupin x Alucard nightmares. Well, they can all change into _DOGS…_Sirius is _so_ gonna be on top :D

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Six: Making Bowties**

xxx

Why does the day/night always begin with Alucard watching me as I sleep? Because he's a sociopath who's greatest joy comes from killing stuff – mainly me. But today he wasn't looming over me, even though I had prepared myself before I had lifted back the lid on the box. There was no sign of his outrageous red coat, and there hadn't been a sighting of his fedora in the vicinity, so I was safe.

I crawled out of the box of mould, dusted off my pajamas, and looked around for my meal. It didn't take long, as the first place I checked was the tea party table, and Walter always unfailingly put it there. My breakfast was simple and quick while I silently prayed that Alucard wouldn't pop out of nowhere and make the blood go up my nose.

Unfortunately it was Seras who came in, accidentally scared me by coming up behind me with the stealth she obviously inherited from her psycho sire, and made me snort blood. This made it all the more embarrassing, because one: Seras hadn't meant to do it, two: I thought I had been 'scouting' effectively, and three: I had just been frightened by a girl who was about as scary as a kitten wielding a marshmallow.

"I'm sorry!" she squealed as I tried to get the blood out of my nose. It was unpleasant and I don't recommend ever using blood as a way to get high.

"It's okay," I mumbled, wiping the blood away from under my nose. "You can't help it." I wasn't one to talk, with my accidental hunting of Walter. But the butler took it all in with good-humor, so I tried to do the same. I forced a smile on my face and politely told Seras to leave while I dressed.

This was when Alucard decided to come in. It took me until I had finished dressing to find him standing behind me, watching me like the stalking pedophile he was. And he brings pedophilia to a whole new level, being roughly twenty times my age. Plus his grin was _really_ disturbing. I didn't know whether he was picturing me without my clothes or if he was picturing me without my _skin_. Either way, it wasn't pleasant.

"Hello," I mumbled, wishing I could just disappear. Since I wasn't cranky and stupid, like I usually was when I woke up, I didn't have the guts to get too angry at him. "Good evening." My toes were awfully interesting tonight…

"Good evening," Alucard said, his smile showing some really white, really sharp teeth. I was reminded suddenly of the bite marks that shark attack victims are left with. "Are we not up to insulting me today? Or have you woken up enough to realize your place?"

If I slapped him now, that would give him leave to tackle me to the ground, bat my head around like a punching bag, pull out my entrails, and then kill me. Afterwards he would play jump rope with aforesaid entrails. But it might be worth it. I weighted the consequences of introducing Alucard's face to the heel of my hand.

I sighed as I made up my mind. He would probably stop me before I could do anything, and he would _still_ eat me. My chances were low…

"No, sir," I muttered, wondering what my chances of jumping back into my box of dirt were. He would probably get me before then. "Just showing you the proper respect."

_Next I'm gonna clean his boots with my tongue,_ I thought ruefully, trying to act like a turtle and sink my head between my shoulders. Or I could play ostrich and stick my head into the dirt. I liked the second choice. _Let's just call him milord, worship the ground he walks on, and call it a night. _

Alucard scoffed, his red eyes glaring at me. "You have no idea what respect is about," he growled, sinking back into the wall.

Well _shit_. I stood there, sulking and staring at my feet, wondering if I should just hang myself and take away the pleasure of killing me. I was _that_ spiteful.

But I wasn't stupid. The fact that I hadn't cracked yet would annoy Alucard more than if I killed myself.

Cause I really wanted to annoy the guy who could kill me using anything, from potpourri to a jumper.

xxx

I had been born in London, I had gone to school in London, I had grown up, lived, _never left_ London; yet I had never visited the Imperial War Museum. There were reasons for that, the biggest being I had never really had a _reason_ to go. Usually if I went anywhere it was because I needed to – like going to the store for food or clothing, going to the library to study, or going to school because my mum told me to. If I went anywhere else it was because Claire was raring to go to some new park or a themed restaurant or something. I never liked those restaurants; the kids were always too loud, too messy, and I would have preferred to wear a raincoat when I went, because food usually went flying.

Seras was on cloud nine. She drifted from exhibit to exhibit, marveling at the causes of wars and the accuracy of the accounts. She had obviously been as antisocial as I had been, though perhaps not. She had probably just never felt the need to come.

It had been nice to get out during the day, even _if_ I was incredibly tired and Seras and I had to share an umbrella to stand under while outside. The sun on the white cement had burned my eyes and made my skin crawl, but it was still enjoyable to be out with normal people. People who had no idea that in the trunk of Sir Hellsing's Rolls-Royce was a sleeping nosferatu dressed in mostly red taking a snooze.

"Oh, look at this!" Seras squealed, making me wonder if Sir Hellsing had the right idea to turn us loose while she met with people from the Vatican. The little blond was going to make my eardrums burst soon.

She was pointed at an exhibit that had something to do with lovers and fighting and the eventual happy ending. I smirked as I stared up at it, because it was just so sappy with the 'true story' written near the top. The story was so outrageous that people need officials to tell them that it was true.

"I think I might puke," I said bluntly. "And it won't be pretty either. Bloody vomit and all."

Seras shivered, but her smile never left her face. "Don't you believe in love?"

"I'm a vampire," I said. "And the only males in the Manor are Walter and Alucard. Now, Alucard is _not_ the sunshine in my life. If anything, he's the gun in my mouth." I looked up at the portrait of the man holding his beloved with Trafalgar in the background. The gunpowder and blood really made the scene. "As a vampire, I've pretty much given up on love."

"I don't think it's _impossible_ for vampires to love," Seras said, still looking at the man and woman in the picture. "I know Master pines for Sir Integra."

"I think Alucard pines over everyone," I said doubtfully. "I caught him stoking his coffin the other day. It might just be the fact that he's a complete nutter…"

Or it might be the loneliness getting to him. Eventually all vampires went mad, and Alucard, being one of the oldest obviously, was the biggest example. He was the man who everyone thought of as normal, albeit a little creepy, until one day he comes into work and shoots up the place, then goes back and finishes his paperwork.

A _sneaky_ psychopath.

I would kill myself before I started talking to my crate of dirt. But that's the hard thing about insanity – you never know when it's going to hit, and by that time you're in too deep and you're talking to inanimate objects. Or licking guns…

Speaking of Alucard.

"Did you just get that vibe?" I said, frozen in place.

Seras, who was just as rooted to the floor as I was, answered accordingly. "The one that we get when a particularly powerful one of our kind has just entered some serious bloodlust?" We're like psychic twins. Eerie.

"I do believe that is what I'm thinking about." I started to sniff the wall under the sickening painting of the bloody love, searching for a whiff of Alucard. This direction was where the bloodlust was coming from, and it was easy to pick out his scent among the menagerie of others. I suddenly hissed, clutching my nose. "The _hell!?_"

"What is it?" Seras asked, scampering over and attempting to help as I desperately and fruitlessly tried to get the stench of burning silver out of my nose.

"I think I found out why Alucard's ready to put a bullet in someone," I muttered, wiping the blood from my nose – for the second time that day.

Seras was using her 'homing' abilities to see into the mind of her master. I pitied her, as she probably had to shift past the thoughts of '_bloodbloodbloodbloodblood_' to find the coherent ones, which should included horribly dirty things being done to Sir Hellsing. But hopefully he was having homicidal urges towards whoever had triggered his bloodlust.

She flinched instinctively as soon as she heard Alucard's thoughts. "They're in front of the _Kaster_ piece."

I had seen that work of art on the way in. Looking around, I saw a tour nearby, full of elderly Japanese folk who were mumbling as the paltry guide rambled on and on about stuff. "I have an idea."

xxx

In record time I had slipped behind the guide when I knew no one was looking, knocked him out with a punch to the jugular, and – once realizing his uniform was similar to Seras's, minus the dreadful bowtie – quickly told Seras my plan.

She agreed to replace the guide, and instantly began leading the elderly group towards Alucard. I followed behind them, making sure no stragglers were left behind.

We made it there just in time. From the corridor we were about to come out of, I could hear Alucard threatening someone in his rasping 'I've come to beat your ass' voice. I could see the glint of the florescent light off his guns, both pointed straight at the offender. I hoped desperately that it wasn't just some old lady with a penchant for silver.

"Go!" I hissed to Seras, and she instantly stiffened.

"This way everyone! This way!"

Seras instantly jumped into the heart of the fire, risking her master's anger. The man he was opposing might just kill her. But it turned out fine; the tour made its way out of the painting gallery, Alucard developed the tired, metal head look that I _knew_ he would have when he was sleepy (discovering this was like finding out Santa was real), and shuffled back to his coffin in the trunk. And Sir Hellsing and her Vatican _mate_ went to have lunch and discuss the attack on the manor in the previous week.

With all Seras's faults, her timidity and fear, I had an inkling as to why Alucard chose to turn her.

xxx

Kana: Sorry that was so short, but this week has been hectic. Plus I was having too much fun fucking around with the stupid religious idiot in my class (no offense to the smart religious people out there) who finds me reading Harry Potter terribly offensive. :D She kept ranting about how it was 'bad' and 'promoted murder and witchcraft'. When I completely ignored her she started babbling about 'the evil blood sacrifice in it'. I laughed until I almost puked, lol-ing about how nearly _every_ book contains a little murder and evil in it, and how I would believe her the day a child kills 'in the name of He-Who-Has-No-Nose'.

I love idiots.

Review Responses:

DarkSandHanyou28: teh rape of teh video games. Altair can say _prison bitch_. Those hat babies will form a cult and sacrifice real babies to Harry Potter. :D

TaikeruSohma: Review to meeee, revieeeeew. You know you want to. Anyway, I'm sorry, but I can't do that, as it would make the story lose the integrity that I'm desperately trying to give it. (Note the word 'desperately').

Rambonata: to be fair, I try and make Willow as realistic as possible, and even though we _lurve_ Alucard and his sadistic tendencies, the shock of seeing someone being eaten by something you were positive didn't exist _would_ make one pass out for a while. And if it's anything, it was really only one day, as Willow would automatically be unconscious during daytime.

Kiseki no Tenshi: Pity me, for I seem to unconsciously enjoy scaring myself shitless with my OTP dreams. And I _did not_ enjoy Twilight. I _dislike_ that fandom. But I _was_ making Voldemort jokes the entire time. "Voldie sent Cedric to the special hell." "All dead Potter characters are sent here. Ten bucks says Snape comes back as Marcus."

BlazingMidnightRain: it seems like all my OCs have my dry sense of humor. I guess that's what brings the reviewers to my yard. Funny, I imagine Alucard petting Seras crooning 'preeeeety…preeeeetypreeeety.'

whatisthisbusiness: I'm glad you find this interesting :3 It's okay to rant – you should see the debates me and my friends have over books, ranging from the Potter series to Garth Nix books, to George RR Martin's awesomeness. Lunchtime usually consists of heated arguments over themes and the meaning of deaths (J.K.R is a _big_ discussion in this) and all that good stuff. Sometimes there are casualties, like my banana this morning, because a friend refused to admit a certain character was evil.

Cannot fathom a PenName: LURVE YOU TWO! Tying Willow into actual events is tough, especially when I keep having to check the manga. Tedious, ya know?

End Responses

Hello my name is Kana and I am a Sirius x Lupin shipper.

Review and I will be happy. I like being happy.


	8. Making SingAlongs

These notes were written like…_months_ ago. I kept them cause I like them :D

Kana: _FUCK_ these finals. _FUCK this math! THERE IS NO SQUARE ROOT OF FIFTY-ONE! GABAAAAH!_

Kana was reading a very good book called _Anno Dracula_. For anyone who has read it, the ending scarred me for life. All I see now is a giant naked Alucard sitting on a throne…_FUCK this nudity!_ (rubs searing eyes) _IT'S LIKE FIRE! _(cries)…(sniffles) But it was a very good book, just a very disturbing description of Dracula. Go read it. Now.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hellsing. I own Willow. Awesome.

By the way, I love Alucard's 'eye tie' in the third manga. I want it. I want to cheat on Alucard's hat and have its tie babies. Then the hat babies and the tie babies will get together and do something scandalous, and then we will officially be white trash. Alucard will be the three-legged dog, Integra and the Major will never leave the blow-up kiddie pool, and Seras will sleep around. And Walter will end up being both Integra's father _and_ her uncle.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Seven: Making Sing-Alongs**

xxx

There was something amusing about watching little almost-too-cute-to-be-undead Seras teach raunchy mercenaries how to shoot. Strangely…satisfying. Of course, if this was a regular sire-childe relationship, she would be learning ferocity from Alucard, who had a reputation for learning things from strange places.

After careful examination, the target's yielded only one result – that the mercenaries had the aim of flying monkeys on crack.

"What the hell is that?" Seras fumed, practically steaming. She was gesturing wildly towards the few bullet holes in the targets. "Why can't you hit the mark!?"

Pip regarded her coolly. "That's insane! You can't expect us to do something so ridiculous!"

"And why is it ridiculous?" I asked, a little less angry than Seras. I could understand the inability to shoot accurately. My aim was a little less than perfect.

But the little Police Girl was already on a roll. "Aren't you dogs of war!?"

"It's not _that_!" Pip clenched his fists. "Who can hit five hundred meters with regular small arms? You'd have to be some kind of freak…"

Seras thought silently for a moment, and then turned towards the men who were still shooting. "Please move." Gaping slightly, the soldier did as he was bid.

Everyone besides me held their breath. I knew what was coming, and I had seen it a million times, but the others hadn't. Their reactions would be priceless.

Hefting up the _Harkonnen_ with one arm, Seras took aim, smiled, and fired. Everyone waited for a second or two, staring at the jeep in anticipation; and then, with a little _poof_ of sound, the car exploded into flames.

Well then. Remind me to never become a hostage. The only two people who would be capable enough to save me would be Alucard, the vampire with squirrels juggling running chainsaws in his head, or Seras, who killed babies by accident. All the mercenaries' eyes were wide, reflecting the flames coming off all the little wooden cutouts.

Seras didn't notice this, of course. She was too pleased with herself, even muttering a 'yes' as she beamed.

"Um…" I looked at her. "I don't think…er…you should look closer."

"All hostages eliminated," Pip blurted out.

A little twitch settled under Seras's left eye. But then she swallowed her pride, straightened up, and turned away from the flaming hostages. "At least I _hit_ something."

"You hit the hostages," Pip deadpanned, lighting up a cigarette. "You effectively did the exact opposite of what we were trying to accomplish."

As the two of them tried to verbally abuse each other to tears, I tried my best to direct the men. Some of them looked at me blankly, their eyes unnaturally bright from too much time in the dark; some of them were terrified of me, the vampire who was quiet. To the latter I was only a step up from Alucard, who scared them so much that a couple of them were inches from soiling themselves half the time. Very few of them actually thought of us as superiors. We were like actors in a strange horror movie, and they were the extras.

"The fire will go out soon," I said, trying to reassure some of them who eyed the flames uneasily. "Until then try and hit the ones that Seras didn't get. Once it's out we'll replace them and move them closer."

Half of them nodded to me shakily; the other half kept staring at me.

I sighed, and if my heart still worked it might have throbbed. The mercenaries were the first _regular_ people I had encountered in a while, and they were afraid of me. I could be a child and still be feared by them. They saw Alucard and they saw me, and we were the same creature to them, only in a 'before and after' format.

A flash of red caught my eye. Looking towards the mansion, I saw Alucard standing in one of the vast windows, looking at us – or more specifically, Seras and I. He lingered over Seras for a moment, and then turned his attention to me, and for a moment I thought I could hear the _click_ as his jaws clamped together through the meat of my throat.

And then I was back in reality, and Alucard was hundreds of meters away, and Pip had started to warble out a revolting army chant, with his own lyrics subbed in.

Following Seras as she shrieked and covered her ears, wailing about sexual harassment, I felt a twinge of jealousy. Why did Alucard want to kill _me_? Why did he direct his homicidal thoughts towards me? Seras was the annoying one; Seras was the one who refused to drink blood and clung to her humanity like a drowning man grasping at straws. Why did he turn Seras and not –

_Shut up,_ I told myself. _Those aren't your thoughts. Seras is a good person – she's a good vampire. You…you sound like…_ My eyes widened.

_Ewwwwwww!_ I tugged at my hair when realization hit me_. You sound like one of his jealous brides fighting for dominance!_

"Oh my God, I'm the brunette one!" I cried, making some straggling mercenaries stare at me.

Banishing the ugly thoughts from my head (and making a mental note to blow my brains out later), I followed Seras as she rushed into the mansion to tell Walter about the 'sexual harassment'. I didn't like Pip's song either, but I wasn't complaining. Then again, it wasn't me he was singing to.

My heart almost skipped a beat – not skipping on account of it not beating – when I smelled Alucard right before Seras opened the door to a useless study.

They looked like they had been having a conversation, and I had a sinking feeling that it had been about us. But Seras didn't care. She felt comfortable around them, around Alucard, who never threatened to eat her tongue.

As Seras freaked out about Pip's song (which was reaching its climax, in more ways than one), Alucard suddenly developed a classic epiphany expression.

"It may be old fashioned, but I have an idea…" Alucard looked at Seras and I, and I felt as if a cube of ice had just dropped down into my stomach.

Oh shit.

xxx

I was having a horrible nightmare. Someone was screaming and pleading, but that wasn't the worst part.

"Sweet mother of God where did you find that tie?" I asked, staring at Alucard as he sat on the coffin that Seras was being sealed into. "It looks like someone drew an eye onto it and then just _puked_ patterns on the rest of it. If you _ever_ say my outfit is dreadful again, I will hang you with that tie."

Alucard looked at me over the top of his glasses, and with his hair actually tamed and his hat missing, he looked _horrifying_. Like the sleazy businessman that rapes little boys on the weekends, or the mob boss that just killed your mother. Or, you know, Alucard in a suit.

_Ew_. _Just __**ew**_.

Sir Hellsing was more concerned about the coffin Alucard was sitting on. I suppose she had seen much worse things in her life. Perhaps Alucard had gone through a zoot suit phase before developing this horrid tie fetish.

"I don't see _those_ getting through customs," Sir Hellsing said ruefully, her cigar bobbing up and down. The image of Alucard and Pip hefting two massive coffins through the airport almost made me smile.

"Were won't be any customs," Walter said, looking tired.

Sir Hellsing nibbled the end of her cigar. "Why not?"

"They will be flying upon a smuggling plane."

_Awesome_, I thought. And then something hit me,

"Where's Seras?" I asked, and Alucard chuckled.

"You're not very bright, are you?" he droned, his hair growing unruly as he threw appearance to the wind and stopped tucking it behind his ears. Without it slicked back, Alucard looked more like himself.

"Says the man who learned English from reading the timetables of the underground," Sir Hellsing said. "Leave Miss Brenner alone, Alucard, and show her the coffin she is to sleep in."

_No, don't leave me with him_, I wanted to scream as Sir Hellsing watched Alucard slide away. He was as slippery as a mudfish, but had the smile of a shark.

"That one," Alucard said, nudging the lid of a plain wooden coffin with his shoe. The lid fell away with a little _thud_ and revealed the black satin-lined inside, complete with a thin, ruffle-y pillow.

I would let Alucard torture me if I got to be buried in that box.

Holding back a squeak of joy, I settled down into the coffin. It was slightly big, giving me room to wiggle around, and the pillow was nice. With a little dirt it would be perfect.

"Wait a second…?" I began as I sat up. "What are you – _MMMPH!_"

Alucard dumped a small container of garden dirt onto my head, chuckling darkly. My stomach exploded with fear as he shoved me down and shut the coffin lid over my head.

Like any normal person – or vampire – I started to shriek. Some of it was normal insults attacking his like of bravery in facing a young yearling vampire (AKA: me), or his hideous taste in ties. A little of it went into screaming about the strangeness of his mansion. But most of it was Yiddish that my extremely Jewish neighbor had taught me.

And here I thought that Yiddish was a useless language. I really put it to work when I told Alucard to go get run over by a bus. Twice.

"Don't worry, Miss. Brenner," Walter told me through the coffin lid. Seras was still screaming. "You need to travel over water. Please just try to sleep, or you'll die."

_Awesome_, I thought bitterly. _The next person who says that vampires are resilient deserves to be slapped. We get screwed over by running water, silver, garlic, the sun. You could floor one of us with a plate of Italian food. _

I fell asleep feeling really bitchy.

xxx

"Oye…wake up…"

Someone was knocking on the lid of my coffin. _My _coffin. That had a better ring to it than 'my box of dirt'. I stretched and grumbled, but didn't open my eyes. Or maybe I did and it was just really dark.

"Hellooooo!" the knocker said again, louder this time. They pounded on the lid. "Wake up! Now!"

_I know that accent…_I thought. _French…oh shit_.

The lid when spinning through the air as I punched it aside. I slammed into a wall and clattered to the floor. The mercenary jumped back and yelped as I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.

"You know, I think I prefer this to Alucard looming over me," I mumbled, eyeing the red-haired mercenary, who I think went by the name Pip. A really odd name for someone of his position, if you ask me. Then again, who the hell has ever thought of using the name Willow for a vampire?

As I looked around and came back to the world, I noticed that my coffin was sitting in a cramped, dark room, where the only light source was the glowing screen of a television. The shades were down, and the TV was on some news station.

"Where…is Alucard?" I asked tentatively.

Pip grumbled irately. "They're staying somewhere else…we're supposed to meet up with them at their hotel…"

I felt my eyelid begin to twitch, and the rage building up inside me was about to blow.

And it did.

"_THAT SON OF A BITCH!_" I shrieked. "How could he leave me in this dump!? I haven't even been briefed properly!" I stared stamping my foot. "I hate him! I hate him! I hope the hamsters in his head eat him from the inside!"

While I let out all my pent up anxiety and rage, Pip watched. This gave him points in my book, as he at least had the sense to let me fume. I screamed, I ranted, I even preached a little about how no man's hair should be that long. Once I was done, and somehow lying face down on the ratty old (flea-infested, by the looks of it) bed, he poked my shoulder.

"What?" I mumbled into the musty quilt.

"You might want to look at the television," Pip said.

I groaned and rolled onto my side, looking at the TV.

"Oh _hell_."

There were blurry pictures of Alucard and Seras on the screen.

"Hey!" I pointed at Alucard's face. "That asshole stole my last name! Bugger you, Mr. J.H. Brenner! Bugger you!"

xxx

Kana: Bugger Alucard, yes. Bugger him ALL NIGHT LONG. (snorts) Sorry, its late, I've been up for…a crap long time playing Radiant Dawn and Harry Potter (WHICH COMES OUT SOON! BOOYA! – insert fangirl spaz – ). I'm going to Florida for two weeks on July eighth, and me and meh bud Peeps are gonna see it :B

I have driving lessons in the morning. I really, really HATE driving. I think I might be good at it, but I hate it so much. But my driver's ed teacher is really funny, and I like him.

Everyone, go play Fire Emblem games. I demand it, because Haar is my bitch. They are addicting, and the only game I'm relatively good at (I love video games, but I kind of blow. Not as much as most people, but not enough to be good.)

Yay for random subject changes.

Review Responses: yay, look at all the reviews. But only cause I'm a lazy ass and haven't updated in MONTHS.

DarkSandHanyou28: Being happy is nice. Peeps is _always_ happy, and she's pink because if it (like, red in the face, ya know?) Alu's coffin isn't in the car, he just can sleep in the trunk cause when it's closed its completely dark. And cramped. Let's all give our sympathy to the claustrophobic vampires, who are afraid of the dark. And hey, if Alucard's apart of a rape, either he'll enjoy it if he's the victim (unless it's a Turk…), or the victim will enjoy it cause…I dunno…(purrs). Is it really rape if both of them like it?

VampireEgyptian: Marshmallow Seras-kitten? Chicken-flavored tuna that looks like beef? :3

TaikeruSohma: OMFG YES! The SLASH! THE SLASH (somewhere out there…there are two actors waking up from horrible OTP nightmares). Aww, really? A review each chapter? Some people only review once, and that makes me sad. Sad authoress is sad.

Kiseki no Tenshi: Nothing about Twilight is taken seriously. Some guy comes to kill you? Oh, he sparkles…KAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

Rambonata: (hit by the mallet of lateness)

vampirelover17: Happy people are happy.

BlazingMidnightRain: Oh, you people are horrible to Willow. If she met Anderson, she would be dead. He wouldn't be like Alucard and scare her until she cracks. He'd just _make_ her crack – by sticking a bayonet in her skull.

Countess Vlad Dracula: Thanks :D

Megumi no Yami Ame: I never abandon a story…unless I _really_ hate it, or it really hates me, or I'm planning to rewrite it. Cause my writing changes constantly. My first story was like _ass_, and now I feel very accomplished. :D But I still suck (wibbles).

Rochelle: I _love_ attracting readers like you. People who've had bad experiences with OCs and really need a touch of reality. I _hate_ OCs that are instantly like 'OMG hot male with _guns_. Must fap'. Alucard is scary. People _should_ be scared of him. Integra we get, as well as Walter. Seras is just…um…her boobs take up all of her fear. And Willow has no boobs, so she's afraid. Cause Alucard's walking behind her with a magnifying glass, inspecting everything she does. Though every fangirl would be drooling (sigh)

Wait a second…HOLY CRAP YOU REVIEWED TWICE! Review again! Review again! I LURVE YOU!

LoveHopes: I hate typos. For some reason I get incredibly embarrassed when I make one and don't see it until I've already posted something. I don't know why…

marora: Alucard looks like he would enjoy Nightwish. Mmmn, symphonic metal.

End Responses

Kana: Sleepy…must sleep. But wait…Kana sees new Black Cat manga? Kana reads…And then Kana goes back to playing video games…UNTIL MORNING. STRAIGHT ON UNTIL MOOOOOORNING! (Is dragged away, because she's overtired).

Let's celebrate my use of Nyquil as a sleep aid and review.


	9. Making Movie References

Kana: Holy crap, coconut covered MARSHMALLOWS. (Omnomnomnom)

Goin' to a U2 concert! Goin' to a U2 concert! BONO! LURVE YOU BONO! You and your SPIFFY NAME!

Fire Emblem games still taking over my life. Mmmmn, Haar. You sexy man-on-dragon-with-a-battleaxe. Crit againagainagainagainagain.

**Disclaimer:** I only own my nervous tendencies, and Willow. Hellsing is not mine. Bite me, kthxbai. (is bitten by rabid Alucard fangirls) SHIT! THEY HAVE RABIES.

FUCK THESE 'P' SHAPED CUL-DE-SACS. I always go the WRONG WAY around them because I have no effing idea where to enter! I'm gonna find whoever decided to create them that way, put his head in a burlap sac, and them beat him with a phonebook at varying angles!

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Eight: Making Movie References**

xxx

Note to Self: anyone who is a black-haired, overpowered nutcase vampire with no steady personality is a magnet for trouble.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Pip squeaked from my back. When I first suggested him climbing onto my back so that I could run to the hotel, he had been excited at the prospect – ten bucks says it was because he wanted to grope me from behind. But now that I was going forty miles an hour along the highway, all he really wanted to do was puke.

"Positive." I bit the inside of my cheek. This was easy – I could run like this for hours. My swiftness was the one thing I was good at.

Once we got to the hotel, however…I could not guarantee anyone's safety.

I did not know the layout of Rio de Janeiro, nor did I know where Hotel Rio was. Pip helped me a little by murmuring directions into my ear and pointing out the hotel's silhouette in the skyline. After that it wasn't hard to find. All I had to do was head towards the sound of panic and follow the police cars.

_What the hell has Alucard done?_ I thought. _Has he gone Dog Day Afternoon on Brazil, or is something much bigger happening?_ _Whatever is going on, it's going to be everywhere very soon_.

"So…what are you planning to do?" Pip asked, trying to make small talk. This was difficult when he had his arms in a death hold around my neck.

"I have no idea." I crossed a busy intersection by leaping over it. Only a mile to the hotel. "But I need to get to Seras. And we need to figure out a way to get out of here without dealing with the police."

I could almost _feel_ Pip's smirk. "I can figure out the transportation part."

Awesome. Now everyone I knew had a disturbing side. Except Seras. She was one part sunshine, two parts cookies, and a third stuffed animal. Everyone in the Hellsing Organization could be described that way. Walter was one part kindly grandfather, one part metal cleaner, and two parts secret bookcase door. Sir Hellsing was two parts steel, one part cigar smoke, and a fourth _other_. Alucard was all parts insane nut job.

I might be going over the deep end already. Why was I filing the Hellsing staff like recipe cards? Was I going to bake muffins later? _Hellsing_ muffins?

_An Alucard muffin would taste like ass,_ I thought_, bloody ass_.

Then I realized just what I was thinking about. _Dammit_. I furrowed my brow; _you need help_.

xxx

"What are you thinking about?" Pip asked after we had stood in the crowd for over ten minutes. I had been silent for ninety-seven percent of that time, staring off into space. I guess that means that I was thinking – which I was.

"What Alucard would taste like as a muffin," I lied without thinking. I had actually been trying to determine where the smell of blood was coming from inside the hotel, but thought that might freak Pip out. But that obviously freaked him out even more. It scared me too, and I found I was making the same 'what the fuck' look Pip was. "Shit; forget I said that."

"Already did," Pip said, turning his eyes back towards the hotel.

We had arrived eleven minutes ago (an extra one minute was spent trying to wade our way through the large crowd) and were currently milling around, trying to decide what to do. Actually, I was stalling, because it was my job to go inside there.

And I could hear the guns going off. The tiny regulation pistols given to the police force sounded like baby versions of Alucard's massive _Jackal_, which had the roar of a sonic boom, even from outside. If I tried, I could hear the bell-like sound of casings hitting the floor.

That was not a place I wanted to be, but I had to. It was my job to be at Seras's back, as cheesy as that sounded. While Alucard plowed through everything with the force of a boulder, we were the cleanup crew that walked behind him.

Fuck. Just _fuck_.

I heard a momentary lull in the gunshots and I took my chance. "Get to work on our way out," I told Pip. "I'm going to meet up with Seras."

Without really checking to see if he caught any of my breathless command, I gathered up my speed and strength. Jogging a few steps, I jumped at least twenty feet into the air. Using momentum, I glided over the crowd, hearing a few of them gasp as I landed on the steps of Hotel Rio, my long shadow giving me some dramatic flair.

I heard Pip's whistle of amazement and gave myself a little pat on the back. To vampires everywhere: you don't need a cape to ooze grandeur.

The bullet that whizzed by me shattered the glass pane on the middle of the front doors.

"Shit," I whimpered to myself, running into the hotel through the jagged hole that was all that was left of the pane. Another cop fired, but this time it went wide, hitting another window pane fifty feet away.

It was a good thing that their aims were crap.

I felt safer once I was a few yards into the foyer of Hotel Rio. It was quiet in here, and the only light source was from the searchlights outside.

There was a little _ding_ as an elevator opened. And for the first time since I became a vampire, I hated my ability to see in the dark.

Alucard came out of the elevator, covered head to toe in blood, and reeking of gunpowder and death. His hair was plastered to his face with the red stuff, and his grin was that of an animal that was satisfied with itself and its handiwork. The bodies inside the elevator were obviously his _work_, and the look of fear and horror on their faces made me drop to my knees and vomit onto the shiny marble of the floor.

My weak stomach was what saved me. Alucard didn't give a damn who he shot, so long as he killed his target. And at the moment of his entrance, my head had been in the middle of the most direct path of killing the nearby SWAT unit hiding behind one of the foyer's couches. Alucard had fired as I fell, and the silver bullet passing over me had made me retch again.

The gunfire frightened me, something that had never happened before. I choked out a sob, my throat stinging with the acidic taste left by the regurgitated blood that pooled on the floor in front of me.

And after a few seconds it was over. I heard the bodies falling to the ground, their guns making a sharper sound as they hit the marble. Alucard's footsteps came closer, and I wanted to puke again, but there was nothing left in my stomach.

"Get up," Alucard demanded harshly. He grabbed the back of my sweater and hauled me to my feet. The smile on his face scared me more than anything. It was not insane, nor was it bloodthirsty. It was an expression that most people used on a daily basis.

It was a goddamn _happy_ smile. The _one_ time Alucard showed a _normal_ emotion, it was during the most terrifying day of my life.

Alucard regarded me for a moment, smiling as blood dripped from the fringes of his hair. Shame filled me as what I had done hit me, and I looked away.

I didn't look up until I heard Alucard walking towards the entrance. "Wait!" I cried, wiping the blood from my chin. "Don't go out there! They'll shoot you!"

What the fuck was I saying? I shut up as soon as my own words reached my ears, hearing them fade away into the haunting silence of the hotel.

"I hope so," I heard Alucard whisper, and I knew he was still smiling.

Suddenly, Alucard raised his arms a fraction, his palms facing outwards. I cut off my shriek of surprise as the dead bodies in the foyer rose an inch off the ground. Without moving any other part of his body but his wrists, Alucard flicked his hands forward, sending the bodies flying out of the windows.

Whatever he did, it made everyone outside scream in terror.

Covering my mouth just in case I puked again, I stumbled to my feet. My legs felt like water as I followed Alucard, standing in the frame of the shattered pane of the door I had come through mere minutes before.

Alucard's shadow was thrown back by the spot lights, spilling across the hotel. His coat flapped a little, but not too much, as if he was controlling the breeze. The bodies of the SWAT agents were speared on the parallel lines of flag posts in front of him. He was no longer covered in blood – how he did this, I had no idea – so his coat was clean and so red it hurt the eyes. I knew that his face was on nearly every television screen in the world, with its happy smile.

I felt my face heat up as the aura he gave off, the power that practically oozed out of him, made my stomach clench in disturbing ways. My instincts flared to life, and I momentarily had the urge to give myself to him.

And then I was myself again, in control of my own body, and I mentally kicked myself and made a note to kick myself physically once I was out of this hellhole.

Alucard grew more savage by the second. His hair lengthened an inch, and the hem of his coat started to drift, like smoke. He glared down into the crowd of people, baring his sharpening teeth.

"Now," he began. "Come on out. I've had my fill," he regarded the bystanders as he revealed his guns from under his coat, "or will I have to fill this place up with _dead_?"

There came the tapping of stiff leather on tar, and the crowd of police shifted aside to let a man through. He was spat out of the mob, dressed in white. He was the man that had sent in the SWAT team, and by the look of his shark fangs (though considerably smaller than Alucard's) he had known who they were going up against.

"My name is Tubalcain Alhambra," the man in white said, his voice accented slightly. "But to those close to me, I am known as The Dandy."

_That is the dumbest fucking name for a vampire since Varney_, I thought. With the return of my dry sarcasm came the return of my strength. I stood a little taller, wanting a better view of this Dandy.

Alucard pointed at the dead men hanging from the flag posts. "Are you the one who sent this pitiful bunch?" he asked.

The Dandy regarded the men hanging from the flagpoles with a flick of his eyes. As he reached into the pocket of his startlingly white trousers, he said, "You mean those poor souls?" Alhambra withdrew a playing card from the pocket. "They were here because their superiors sacrificed them for _eternal life_."

"They are fools," Alucard drawled, his voice taking on an edge. A nutty edge. "In this world, eternity doesn't exist."

Alhambra cocked the card, as if he was about to throw it. That would be as effective against Alucard as using a thimble to bail out a flooding boat. "They proved a little useful. How many of your _magic_ bullets do you have left, Alucard?"

I stifled my squeak of horror with my forearm. _Of course Alucard has no bullets left!_ I thought. _He used them all on the SWAT agents. _But I wasn't as worried as I should have been. Alhambra didn't know it, but Alucard hid dogs in his pants.

"Enough boasting," Alucard snapped. "What happens now, Dandy?"

"Now?" The Dandy held his wrist up, giving leave for thousands of playing cards to pour out of his shirt sleeve. "The time has come for you to be enumerated as nothing more than one of our many samples; one of _Millennium's_. Now you _die_."

I lurched forward, my right arm extended. The cards were flying at Alucard with the ferocity of a hive of bees, their lacquered faces shining in the harshness of the spotlights. The nosferatu was recoiling desperately, trying to get out of the path of the Cards of Doom. In a split second I had a handful of his red coat and I was dragging him back.

The cards dug into the cement were Alucard had been moments before, some getting caught in the ground, but most swept back around like a flock of birds back to Alhambra.

Alucard growled, baring a fang. He regained his composure quickly, ignoring the hot blood trickling from the cut on his cheek. I on the other hand was yelping and clawing at my arm, where a playing card was lodged in between my radius and ulna. It hurt like a son of a bitch, but I tried to bite my tongue and pretend that pain was _fun_, like Alucard. I needed to become a masochist _right now_.

"So it was _you_ people," Alucard said softly, wiping at the blood running down his cheek. "Of course. Of course. I suppose it's only natural that I fight you this time, because you _obviously_ didn't learn from being destroyed the _once_."

I cocked my head at Alucard. Was he speaking of his Dandy man, or of something bigger? I didn't have time to ponder that any more, as the whole world went to hell.

_Shit!_ I screeched as another whirlwind of blackjack came right as us, whistling in a batshit crazy version of a hornet's nest. Like Alucard I jumped out of the way, dodging both the playing cards from hell and shattered glass as some cards went rogue and attacked the panes of the doors of Hotel Rio.

And then, without regard for the idiots who decided to surround the hotel, Alucard and the Dandy started to attack each other. And when I say without regard, I really mean that. Alucard might not have hit the Dandy each time he fired one of his guns, but he did hit _someone_. Whether it was a reporter or a civilian, heads were literally rolling as the two vampires went at it as if they were in a pay-per-view cage match.

My heart wasn't really bleeding for the civilians, as I never really cared for the idiocy of the world. If they were dumb enough to remain after Alucard beat the crap out of the highly-trained asses of Rio's SWAT team, then they weren't contributing to the world as a whole. The reporters I felt a little sorry for, as they were just doing their jobs; but once again, no use crying over what's already dead. And if they were shot by the Jackal, they were definitely dead.

I was more worried about Pip, as I didn't know where he was. Seras was also missing, but – surprise! – I actually trusted Alucard to care for her. He might let her get her ass kicked a little, but she could handle herself well and she had a master to take care of her. But Pip was a human, and only had one eye. I had seen him shoot, and he probably could take care of himself better than Seras, but you could never be too careful with a casino vampire on the rampage.

Doing the same jump-hover maneuver, I scanned the crowd, searching for Pip's flaming red hair. I finally saw him near the edge, walking out of the SWAT tent. Only he wasn't in his usual Hellsing uniform.

He was in a Rio police uniform.

"You sneaky, sneaky bastard," I murmured, landing with a heavy thud beside him. Pip jumped at least a foot into the air, but I found no amusement from that.

Okay, maybe a little amusement.

"What's up?" I asked, licking the blood running down my arm. The pain from the card had dulled into a simple ache, but blood was still pouring from the slit. I knew that if I lost too much blood, I would start to look horrific. My lips would recede over my fangs, exposing them, and my teeth would start to jut out like a shark's does during its feeding frenzy. I didn't want to scare _everyone_ I met.

Pip was smirking in a way that sent the hair on the back of my neck on end. But it wasn't an Alucard smirk, so I didn't really worry until the tent barely ten yards from me blew up.

"Oh," I muttered as Pip lit up casually. Watching the tent, I saw a man on fire try the stop, drop, and roll technique. Which would have worked if he hadn't done it in more fire. "They can't win for losing."

"I know," Pip bit the end of his cigarette hard. "Wanna help me find a helicopter?"

I looked over my shoulder, where Alucard was running _up_ a wall, completely disregarding gravity. Then I turned towards the flaming tent. _So many choices. Go towards the demented vampire battle, the burning people, or commit the theft of a chopper. _

"Okay," I shrugged, following Pip.

God, the fact that this no longer bothered me…bothered me.

xxx

Kana: I would have updated earlier (like, an entire week earlier) but my computer got a 'virus protection bullshit' Trojan for the SIXTH time. And I had to get a new hard drive for it, as well. Thank god my uncle made computers – he is my own personal Jesus. I had to cut the chapter a page short, keeping out Alucard's speech and the big getaway. I'll make up for it _next_ chapter, which I promise will be out before school starts and be ten pages long.

In other news – _PONYO IS COMING OUT SOON! _(spasms and dies happy) Mum asked me what rating it had XD I said it was a movie about a goldfish – she understood. IT'S RATED R! BWAHAHAHA!

Good news! I am an accomplished, capable driver! But sometimes I get my left and right mixed up! Yay!

Review Responses:

marora: It's only a deadly curse if she spits in his eye. That's what my nana says.

new lord of darkness: You can be the one to try that. I'm not going near Alucard's room with a ten foot pole.

Kiseki no Tenshi: Oh yes, I will be forced to watch that horrid emo-fest of crap. I'm trying to make my chapters longer, and make them deviate a little from the storyline…

Aracade: I think everyone would want to deal with Alucard. Except my version of 'dealing with' is actually 'chaining to a bed and pouring chocolate all over his body… But Willow doesn't have that option. ;-; Poor Willow.

VampireEgyptian: British slang is amazing! Bugger! Bloody hell! Wanker! BOLLOCKS! And my personal favorite phrase of surprise – BLOW ME!

DarkSandHanyou28: Everyone squees when I update. Even those who hate me. They involuntarily squee.

BlazingMidnightRain: (shrug) I had to somehow tie Willow to Hellsing.

vampirelover17: I couldn't wait for the next chapter either. That's why I updated :D

TaikeruSohma: YES! The only vampires who should sparkle are those with glitter on! Or Eric! Because the image of him in a glam suit is just too much!

Kana ish very happy for the website. But Kana also has illegal downloads, so Kana is doubly happy.

Rochelle: If Alucard was leaning over my bed, that would be awesome. It would only take one tug of his cravat to pull him into a teeth-knocking, tonsil-sucking, tongue-wrestling snogging make out session. And I figured that that is the acceptable conclusion to Seras's magical boobies. Either that or they're actually aliens that just stuck to her chest like barnacles.

Rickmer: I like your reviewing style. Short, sweet and to the point.

blekmedelninjan: I like reeling in people like you. I try to make my OCs different.

(le gasp) critique!? I UBER LURVE YOU. I know Willow isn't exactly the most unique character, but I don't have the time – or the courage and patience – to go out and read all those annoying OC stories. I only read two constantly. But I try to make her unique in my own little way. I'm slightly irked by the fact that, even though I tried to make Willow a very serious and adult character, she ended up with the dry sarcasm that all my characters seem to develop. But I like making people laugh, so I guess that's okay for a fanfiction.

XxBirdxOfxHermesxX: Don't actually die laughing, okay? Cause I haven't figured out if that counts as homicide on my part.

End Responses

Kana: My birthday's in little more than a month! I'll be seventeen! And a junior! But the best part is the MONEH! My Amazon shopping cart is stuffed with books, manga, and CD's! And I'll finally get a new mp3 player, since my old i-Pod is nearly four years old and in need of a break.

I've got a challenge for those Southern Vampire Mystery fans out there. I've left a subtle reference to one of the book titles in the chapter. Find it and you get bragging rights.

Next chapter! Lovecraft is pissed! Alucard hijacks a Transformer! The goldfish attack the eagles! Lame jokes are lame!

Let's celebrate the arrival of Ponyo by reviewing.


	10. Making Seeds of Doubt

Kana: I would have gotten to this sooner but…I've found another love. Kuroshitsuji has been taking over my _life_, and I dare say I'm even writing a one-shot for it. Not that I will give up on Hellsing – dear god no – we have a long way to go before that well is dry.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own ANYTHING. I do own this crazy ass dream of being a writer, but according to statistics I'll eventually become a dime store romance novelist. Hot _dang_ that's better than what I hoped for!

My mummy surprised me with a copy of the first _Vampire Hunter D_ movie. I want to punt a baby into the ocean RIGHT NOW. Who decided that Lefty was going to sound so retarded? LEFTY SAYS IT'S A TRAP. But mummy still gets points.

Before I start this chapter, I must repeat – I can't do accents. Therefore Anderson is a bit easier to understand.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Nine: Making Seeds of Doubt **

xxx

Ow. Sun. I hate you sun. You're evil and I hate you.

_Then why am I lying in the sun?_ I thought to myself, closing my eyes. Even with the dark sunglasses I had bought from a nearby convenience store, my eyes still burned. I had wanted to steal a pair of Alucard's, but even though he was dozing in his coffin I couldn't find them.

I'll tell you. I'm lying in the sun because I was waiting for Seras and Pip to return. They were off finding food and a boat or plane out of here, and they had been gone for two hours.

Like hell I was going to be alone with Alucard for that long. Sure he was sleeping, but even sleeping he was freaky. And his coffin was freaky – I got too close to it while trying to filch his sunglasses and it _growled_ at me. Also, he snored like a car engine turning over. I know vampires are supposed to be silent as the dead when sleeping, but he must have been restless or something.

So now I was out, lying on my back in the grass in the sun. Even though it tingled unpleasantly, the sun warmed me to my core, something that I hadn't felt in over two weeks. I had put a thick layer of sunscreen on my skin to protect it from burns, and I had drunk a full pouch of blood to ward off heatstroke. Now I felt bloated and slimy, but warm.

Rolling over onto my side, I turned up the volume on the old radio I had found. The only English news station in _all_ of Rio de Janeiro was led by a guy with the world's thickest accent.

Everyone was talking about the 'Gun Genocide' at the Hotel Rio. Luckily only human bodies had been found, as the Dandy Man's body had burned into nothing more than ash as soon as Alucard's teeth clamped together in his neck. Why he would want to eat something so greasy is beyond me, but it effectively got rid of the mutilated corpse. I had been in the helicopter with Pip at the time, but Seras was kind enough to give me the details while we escaped. And what _fun_ details they were, with Alucard making _humm_ing noises every time something particularly bloody was brought up.

A large bug landed on my navel. It fanned its wing cases, grayish against my red sweater. I didn't know whether insects could be hot or not, but it might have been. I was not hot – I couldn't get hot. I could only let the sun warm me like a lizard on a rock.

"Hello bug," I said, craning my neck to see the beetle. I reached out a hand and let it crawl onto it. It had reached my knuckles when I realized something.

I used to hate bugs. Now I was letting one crawl up my arm, its legs tickling my skin.

"This is the arrogance talking again," I thought aloud. Feeling my unnaturally cold breath, the beetle opened its wing cases and zipped away. "Same to you."

Wishing I had slapped at the damn thing, I flipped the news off. A music station came in, static obscuring most of the Cranberries song that was playing. I had always hated most music, but it reminded me of Claire, who loved it. It was strange that such a little girl had already accumulated such a large collection – with CDs that her mother had approved. She loved to listen to it really loud, also very odd for a little girl, and she flailed around in her own brand of ridiculous dancing.

"_Dance with me, Auntie Birdie!_"

_Oh god, Claire. Do you know what happened to grandma and grandpa? Do you know that their son ripped out their jugulars and drank from the fountain that came after? Has there been a funeral?_ A sudden longing to return home filled me. I wanted to see Claire and my eldest brother, with my sister in law. They would probably never believe that I was a vampire, but they would at least welcome me home.

But that would lead to police intervention. Perhaps I was listed as a 'missing person'. My brother's body had turned to dust when I had shoved the sharpened chair leg through his chest, but they would have found the bloody piece of wood. And they would have seen the scratch marks on the bathroom wall, where I had been dumped to turn. They would match the blood in those scratched from me, when my nails had snapped as I lost myself in pain. But my body would be nowhere.

The stories that the police would come up with almost made me laugh.

The Cranberries faded away, leaving me with an N'Sync song. _That_ made me laugh. I laughed until tears of blood ran down my face, staining my skin pink.

Wiping away the tears with my sleeve, I stood up. Just thinking of going home lifted my spirits, because it might be possible to ask Sir Hellsing if I could go visit my family.

Feeling happier with Claire's favorite band on the radio, I did a little jig. The jig turned into a series of jumps, until I was laughing and bobbing my head to the beat.

"What are you doing?" said a voice behind me.

I landed on the ground, my blood freezing in my veins. Alucard was watching me, one slim eyebrow cocked high over his glasses. The meal I had consumed a half hour earlier bubbled in my stomach, threatening to come back up.

"Um…" I clamped my mouth shut as saliva filled it, a sure sign of nausea.

Alucard walked to the radio and picked it up. Cradling it in the crook of his arm, he switched it to the news station, and grinned psychotically as they listed the total dead.

"Don't look at me like that, yearling," Alucard drawled at me, his red eyes regarding me lazily. "We all have our passions, and the Hellsing family has deprived me of nearly of all of mine. Killing is all that I have left."

"There are plenty of other things that you could do," I said in disgust, trying not to let it show. "Ever tried knitting? Very relaxing."

"Your little cracks amuse me," Alucard purred, grabbing my chin with one hand. His fingers were cold through his gloves, and they squeezed my face with enough pressure to break a human's jaw. "But one day you'll find that almost everything gives you nothing, even if you put your whole heart and soul into it. One day you'll put a bullet through an idiot's head and feel the euphoria that comes with becoming a god of sorts."

"I refuse to become like you," I hissed, baring my little fledgling fangs. While his filled his mouth and could grow to a lethal inch long, mine were dainty and only grew in my four canines. It was very undermining. "Do you always think about death? If given the chance, would you kill anyone? Walter? Sir Hellsing? Your own fledgling?"

Alucard was frowning now. He dropped the radio, letting it smash to pieces on the ground. Reaching inside his coat, he pulled out the black _Cassul_. This he aimed right between my eyes, letting me stare down the fathomless barrel.

"You should watch what comes out of your mouth. Sometimes I'm so lost in rapture when in battle that I can't decide who should live, or who should –."

_Bang_.

The bullet parted my hair, fired mere centimeters from where it had been pointed seconds before. The blood in my stomach came up and I swallowed it out of pure determination. I refused to vomit in front of him again.

"- die." Alucard's eyes were half-lidded in satisfaction. He tucked his gun be into his coat.

Walking away, he shot one last comment over his shoulder.

"Believe it or not, I think I used to be like you. Disgusted by death. I once was in denial like you." Alucard smirked. "You're more likely to become _exactly_ like me than even the police girl. There's a seed of insanity in your mind, and its just waiting to blossom."

Leaving me with that lovely thought, he walked back into the shelter.

xxx

_You're going to become exactly like me_.

God, could I see myself as that? Killing people without even the slightest hint of sadness or remorse? Could I do what Alucard had done in Hotel Rio? Could I murder men who were just doing their jobs, and then gloat about it?

Was I going to become exactly like Alucard one day?

"Willow, are you okay?" Seras was above me, standing over me with Pip, who carried a greasy bag of food.

I couldn't let Seras find out that calm, cool, and collected Willow was crying over the fact that she was one day going to be a monster living off the life she stole from others. I had known that all vampires eventually went a _little _insane, but I had tried to deny it. Besides, Alucard was more than a _little_ insane; compared to him, Jack the Ripper was a _little_ insane.

"I'm fine, just relieved to be going home," I said, my voice cracking. Bloody tears dripped off my chin, a sensation that was new and uncomfortable to me. I had never cried so hard in my life. I tried to smile.

Pip shoved a hand into the bag of fast food and gave me a rough napkin stained with some more greasy. "You look creepy with all that blood on your face," he said.

I took it gratefully and cleaned my face in long, efficient wipes. "Thanks."

"Don't be so happy," Seras said. Funny, I had never thought of those words coming out of her mouth. It was like Alucard saying 'I've institutionalized myself'. "There aren't any boats or planes out of here for another week."

_Well shit._

"Then I guess we should go tell Alucard," I sighed, trying not to let my fear show. I stood, stuffing the bloody napkin in the right pocket of my slacks.

The walk to the shelter seemed to take half the time it should have. In a second I was staring meekly at Alucard, who had his back turned to us. By the look of it, he had been reporting to Sir Hellsing before we had entered. If we had come in a few moments earlier, we might have walked in on something creepy.

"Hallooo, master," Seras said in a singsong voice. Whereas I looked like a ragamuffin with a fright-wig on after lying in the sun, Seras actually looked _happy_.

Suddenly, Alucard's back didn't look so inviting. Seras looked at me, her eyes begging me to tell him that we weren't leaving for another week. I smirked at her, my way of saying 'no way in hell'. I had nearly gotten shot this morning – Sir Hellsing would wear pink before I was the bringer of bad news to Alucard. So Seras gave a little twitch and finally told him.

"It's impossible to leave today. Nothing's leaving for a week, even smuggling boats." Seras glared at Pip out of the corner of her eye when the mercenary sipped his soda loudly. That man had the thickest spine I had ever seen.

"No." Alucard looked over his shoulder, saw me, and gave me a nasty grin. "That's out of the question. We're going to _steal_ a plane."

My stomach dropped into my shoes. By the look of Seras and Pip, I wasn't the only one feeling as if I was spiraling down a tunnel that would lead to imprisonment in a foreign country or death. "What?" I squeaked.

"There's no other way," Alucard said, casting a glance at his coffin. "Get ready."

"We're gonna _die!_" Pip choked out, clutching the greasy bag of food to his chest in woe. "_Mon dieu!_ _Je ne veux pas mourir!_ No thanks! You can't kill me that easily!"

While Pip wailed about dying (which, even with the prospect of becoming a vampire, sucked pretty bad) I expected Alucard to either shoot him and put him out of his misery, or slap him upside the head. But Alucard had become ominously silent, and even though his jacket, waistcoat, and shirt we could see his back suddenly tense up.

Alucard's head moved an inch to the left, and I could see a single red eye, wide with shock. This was such a rare phenomenon that spontaneous combustion was more common.

Seeing her master's expression, Seras turned around and stood on tiptoe to look out the peephole in the door. Whatever she saw was enough to make her blanch and break out in pink sweat.

"What?" I asked, as confused as Pip when Seras let out a terrified squeak and backed frantically away from the door. "Is something out –."

_**BAM!**_

I shrieked and recoiled as someone literally _kicked_ the door in. What _is_ _this_!? Who the hell _kicks_ peoples' doors down!? Who _can_ kick a door down!?

From the debris of the door came a man, whom I recognized as the guy who had nearly started a brawl with Alucard in the Museum. Wearing a cassock and a clerical collar to boot, he was taller than even Alucard (kudos to him), and he had seemed to have made Seras lapse into a fit of pathetic sounds. I stared at him with curiosity, not noticing that Alucard had went from shocked to bloodthirsty in seconds.

The priest looked at me, his blue eyes full of hatred. Ouch.

"I see you've gone and made yourself a new childe," the man said with an accent thicker than the Brazilian news reporter's. Making childes is like eating crisps.

"Hey!" I pointed a finger at him, more than a little pissed off. Even though Seras was cowering in fear as she fumbled for the _Harkonnen_, I had no reason to fear this man yet. "Don't you _dare_ put me in the same boat as that red thing with a personality! I am my own parent-in-darkness, and I'll put a foot so far up your ass that I'll lose my shoe if you say that again!"

The man gave me a bemused glance before punching Alucard in the face. But hey, Alucard was just about to sock him in the gut, so he kind of had a reason.

Pip and I watched in stunned silence as the two men when at it like two teenage boys overflowing with testosterone, alternating between punching each other in the face and stomach. When they finally stopped they were both bleeding from the nose, and even Alucard was wincing from the blow to the stomach he had just received. The strength of the priest must have been off the charts if he had been able to punch a vampire and not break his hand.

With a grunt, Seras heaved the _Harkonnen _onto her shoulder and aimed it wobbly at the man's face. The priest spared her one glance and smirked when she squeaked in fear and toppled backward.

Suddenly the man whipped something out of his coat, the same way Alucard armed himself. A silver flash flew right at my head, and it was only with the grace of god that I ducked in time to feel something _else_ dangerous part my hair. A piece of paper blocked my view, so I slid out from under it meekly. I'm surprised I hadn't developed a bald spot yet.

The man picked up his shattered, useless glasses and gave Alucard a look that could have correctly been labeled as the 'evil eye'. According to superstitious people, he would later develop a cold, fall down the stairs, and choke to death on a cherry pit.

"Thirteen kilometers north of here is an Iscariot air field disguised as a crop duster station. There is a jet there that is ready to take off." The man straightened his glasses and wiped his bleeding nose. "Get on it and _get out_, before I decide to slaughter the lot of you."

Now I had a reason to fear him.

xxx

It sucks to be threatened twice in one day and then shoved into a coffin and put aboard a plane that was no bigger than a toothpaste tube. But at least I was in _my_ coffin (that still makes me giddy inside). But sleep eluded me, partly because of the turbulence, and partly because I had Alucard's coffin on top of mine. Don't even try and see that as innuendo, because it blew big chunks.

We were crammed together, with Pip sitting on Seras's coffin and reading a Brazilian magazine (which was just a step up from the bible, which was in every seat pocket on this damn plane). Alucard's coffin and mine were strapped together, the weight of our combined coffins making sure we didn't slide around the passenger area. Not that were was enough room to slide around, we just didn't want to find Pip squished when we landed. The vampire himself was sitting in the passenger area, the lucky bastard.

Once again, don't take this as innuendo, but sleeping under Alucard is _hard_. For some reason his coffin exuded negativity the same way a cut lip oozed blood. And this negativity made my blood pump through my veins at a dizzying rate, leaving me feeling light-headed and ill. When I did fall asleep, it was only with the help of fourteen hundred and fifty-nine jumping sheep.

As soon as I closed my aching eyelids, I was at Timothy's house, being offered green beans by Susan. I was speechless; I had just been thinking of them this morning, of visiting them, and now I actually was. I knew it was some sort of dream, but I decided to milk it as much as I could.

Nobody spoke as I nibbled at a green bean. Claire was drinking juice out of a paper cup and eyeing me from my right, and Timothy was chewing silently. Susan was the only one on my left, and she was pale and near tears.

"What's the matter?" I asked, reaching out to her.

I froze, seeing my hands. My white gloves.

I never wore gloves…

"I'm not Alucard!" I shrieked upon wakening, jerking up and slamming my head into the lid of my coffin. Something cracked and blood dribbled into one of my eyes. "Dammit."

Pressing my sleeve to my forehead to sop up the blood, I kicked the lid, hoping Alucard heard it. It didn't make me feel any better, and it made my foot hurt.

xxx

I had lived in London all my life and I had never seen the Krauney house before. Hell, I hadn't even been sure what it was until today. But now I was in it, hurrying after Alucard and Seras and Pip and hoping to god that I didn't have bed head from my coffin.

A few weeks ago, if I had known I was going to meet the Queen, I would have taken my mother up on that offer to get my hair cut. But I guess it was too late now, so I made due by running my fingers through it and wiping the saw dust from my jumper. And I wasn't the only one trying to make myself look like I actually cared; Pip was pulling a fresh t-shirt over his head, and Seras was pulling down her skirt.

Some soft murmuring was coming in through the door, and for one strange moment it felt as if my heart had begun to beat again. Blood roiled in my stomach as Alucard opened the door.

"Everyone's here," he commented, looking at the dozen or so people staring at us. "Splendid."

Who taught him the word 'splendid'? I'm going to find them and rip out their voice box, and then make them teach him a more appropriate word through the use of interpretive _dance_. I felt my toes curl and I realized with a groan that I had forgotten to put on shoes.

_Fuck me_. Alucard was going to eat me and save my bare feet for last.

Sir Hellsing and Alucard shared a master and servant moment, and I could almost taste the sexual tension. Oh sure, they smiled, but they were both obviously picturing the other naked.

"Alucard, remove your glasses," Sir Hellsing suddenly said. "You are in the presence of the Queen."

To my surprise, Alucard did so, and then began walking towards aforesaid monarch. My stomach did a back flip that should have earned it the gold at the Olympics. Alucard dwarfed the little woman, even when kneeling.

"Are you as creeped out about this as I am?" I asked Seras quietly.

"A little," Seras whispered back, "but don't they look cute?"

Cute was not a word to describe Alucard, but yes, the exchange between him and the Queen was a little less menacing that everything else he did. He allowed her to touch his face, something that would have meant death for everyone else, and completely gave himself to her. In fact, the look he was giving Her Majesty was devoid of anything batty, and…endearing.

Unless I was mistaken, Alucard loved our Queen. In that moment, while they spoke softly to each other, I believed he would fight all the evil blackjack dealers in the world for her. Only Sir Hellsing could prevent him from doing it.

After their exchange, Alucard delivered his report. He spoke of events fifty years ago, touching upon nostalgic events – which for him meant war and bloody battles ending in amputated limbs – and politically incorrect subjects. And by politically incorrect I mean Nazis.

When Alucard finally got to the point, after building up enough suspense to pop a balloon, he said something that he had _never_ told any of us.

"The Letztes Bataillon."

I bit my lip and felt my toes curl.

xxx

Kana: Yaaaaaaaay, its up. I'm sorry it was…a month late, and the ending was a bit lame, but at least it's here. And I've been working on something bigbigbig, which I want to finish before I start posting it, so this won't happen again.

Oh Hirano, without your little blocks of location, I would never know where the Hellsing people are.

I'd like to thank Marora for the critique. It gave me a wonderful idea :3

Review Responses:

Rickmer: Cheers to you ;P

Kiseki no Tenshi: Never heard of PONYO!? It's was the newest Miyazaki movie (which is no longer in theaters ;-;). Twas amazing.

watergoddesskasey: Thanks :)

DarkSandHanyou28: Yeah, that bugged me too. I'd prefer unknown voice actors, thank you very much. That particular image of Liam Neeson will never leave my head. Yay for cynicism and satire. It is my bread and butter. And who DOESN'T want an Alucard muffin? With a little frosting hat on top.

marora: All I can say is… (hug)

Catra: AHA! You get special bragging rights! And Eric. No…I want Eric. Mmmmn, Eric.

Sarah Victoria Cullen: No internet? That sucks big time. I had no internet for a while, and since my computer's really old, even my new fast modem is super slow. Try not to get kicked out of the library, okay? Cause libraries are sacred where I live, since ours is only open three times a week.

Rochelle: ROFL right back at you. I once taught that to my mum and now she never stops using it – along with epic fail. And YES, I am seventeen. And I use the phrase 'back in my day' to refer to the wonderful 90's, where cartoons were full of innuendo and life was good. Oh no, Willow has the hots for nobody. I just put that in there cause I wanted to describe how primal vampires can be. Alucard is the big man on campus, therefore Willow unconsciously wants his ass. But she would first jump off London Bridge.

End Responses

Sorry about the detached the responses, but I want to get this up FAST.

Has anyone been missing these alerts? Cause I posted a one-shot a while back and it still doesn't have any reviews. Not that I think its amazing stuff, but I've posted worse and gotten at least one review before. It makes me a little sad ;-;

I recommend Kuroshitsuji to anyone who likes Hellsing. Tis amazing, and its on most online manga sites and the anime (though considerably worse than the manga) is on most online anime sites. Seriously, watch it. Nao.

Next Chapter: something about the siege of London. BADA.

Let's review cause we got this alert.


	11. Making Jokes About Potatoes

Kana: I just recovered from an hour long fangasm over the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion. HOT DAMN I WANT IT. Deathwing is teh sexy. But I need a new laptop, because this one can't run WoW without being severely crippled within a month's time by viruses.

Watch as I pine away over an Alienware laptop.

**Disclaimer:**__I own only my fangasms. Everything else is the property of those who dedicate their life to causing them.

As a thanks to my wonderful reviewers, this chapter is long AND early AND focused on Willow (which quite a few of you wanted). It's the end of the world!

Guess what? My first name is the same as a certain character from Hellsing. 'Tis a bit risky to say this aloud, but it's only my first name. Can you guess what it is before the end of this long-ass chapter?

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Ten: Making Jokes About Potatoes**

xxx

I had just cut my foot on the sharp glass of a broken wine bottle. The layer of alcohol seeped into the cuts and made them burn. My curse was of epic proportions, and I crouched down to pluck shards from my foot. All around me people were hurrying by and ignoring me. One mother whispered to her child about the dangers of running barefoot.

I didn't care, and neither should they. But then again, they had no idea what was coming. But I did, and I had to find Timothy and tell him about what had just happened.

My body felt colder than usual as I listen to the rhythmic sounds of my feet slapping the cement. Someone gasped as I passed a store window and my running form wasn't reflected in the glass. I didn't care. I was running on the balls of my feet, feeling the wonderful strain of tendons in my arch. My revolver banged against my ankle in its holster, the silver bullets making shivers go up my spine.

Running so slow was enough to make me insane. But when Sir Hellsing had given me two hours to find Timothy and tell him about what was going down, she had specifically stated that I couldn't run any faster than I should, to keep the general public out of the crazy vampire loop. She had also said that Alucard would be dragging me back kicking and screaming when the two hours were up, whether I had found Tim or not. _And_ I had had to wait until morning to go out, because I had apparently 'needed some sleep'. Bugger that; I could have kept going on pure determination and adrenaline. Screw sleep.

The time limit no longer bothered me. I could keep a regular human sprint up for hours. It was convincing Timothy that a psychotic force straight from hell was coming to London that would suck up my two hours.

Fuzzy memories floated through my head as I neared Timothy's building. I felt strangely distant from my body as I thought of a little boy in a Hitler youth uniform, of a smiling man, of _ZumHenker Defatist_. Of stupid people who wouldn't stop screaming, of blood and gore and sharp teeth chewing through flesh and sinew and bone, breaking and eating and swallowing and making men disappear. No matter how much I joked about it, not even Alucard ate people – it slowed him down.

Those vampires were either very brave or very stupid.

While I was trying to block all these images (muttering and making people actively avoid me) I had crossed the distance from the corner to Timothy's building in seconds. I must have put on a little too much speed, but people had been too busy with their mundane tasks to notice the frightened young woman hyperventilating on a stoop.

And now that Timmy's door was looming in front of me, I suddenly had doubts. _Maybe they wouldn't come to London, maybe_ _Alucard will stop them, maybe they won't make it here, maybe Tim will survive, maybemaybemaybemaybe. _All these maybes floated through my mind. I knew I was kidding myself, but now that I was staring at the building's red door I felt as if facing down an angry Alucard armed with nothing but a banana.

As I debated on the pros and cons on going inside, the door suddenly opened.

_Shit_. Thick brown hair, plain black eyes, a thin smiling mouth and laugh lines around the eyes. It was Susan, and she was staring me right in the face.

The silence that followed was enough to make even Sir Hellsing want to scream. I saw that she wasn't wearing any makeup, and that she had some serious raccoon eyes. They weren't red or puffy from crying, but I could tell that she hadn't slept well lately. She carried a shopping list in her hands, but no keys. For some strange reason I remembered that the supermarket was just down the street.

"Willow?" she gasped after a moment. Tears welled up in her eyes and the list crumpled in her hand as she made emotional fists at her sides. "Willow!"

I was pulled into a bear hug, complete with hysterical laugher and sobbing. She rocked me from side to side, but I just couldn't grasp enough coherence to hug her back. Her shriek had carried, making my ears ring, and some people on the street glanced at us, thinking they were witnessing a heartfelt moment.

There was the sound of pounding, and Timothy rushed downstairs, a white blur. That man had bat hearing, I swear.

"Willow!" Timothy cried, only halting for a second to make sure Susan wasn't hugging some complete stranger.

He had grown old while I had been gone. I guess the death of your family aged you buy a couple of years. His once-blond hair now looked white, and he had grown too thin and too pale. He was as cold as I was, and when he wrapped his arms around Susan's his grip was weak.

"Guys…" I mumbled, my mouth crammed against Timothy's shoulder. "Is Claire in your flat all alone?" I tried not to breath on them, knowing my mouth smelled like decay.

"Oh!" Susan loosened her hug and looked at me as if I was going to dissolve into a dream if she left.

"Go, I'll bring her up and she can explain," Timothy whispered, too happy or too shocked to speak clearly. "She won't float away."

_I will. I will float away. In two hours time – no, an hour and a half – a crazy man in red is going to drag me away and bring me back to a life of blood sucking and an inevitable spiral into madness. _I felt tears swarm up behind my eyes, but I kept them back. If I started crying blood this early, then they would never believe that this wasn't a dream.

When Susan was gone, Timothy broke. "Where have you been?" he wheezed, his voice cracking. _Stop crying. Stop now._

"I'll tell you in the flat," I said, my arms raising stiffly, like the Tin Man's, and patting his back. "Just promise me you won't call the police."

"That never crossed my mind," Tim said, pulling away from me.

He saw my eyes. Oh God, he saw my eyes and he wasn't looking away.

"What…?" he began. I shushed him with a raised hand, the universal sign for 'not now'.

"In the flat, I'll tell all three of you," I said, unsmiling. Now more than ever I felt the absence of my beating heart.

The good thing about Timothy was that he was very understanding and patient. I had once been patient, but I guess the gene had been watered down by the time it had gotten to me.

As I followed him up the single flight of stairs to his apartment, I thought about what I was going to say. This had been plaguing me ever since I had found a relatively safe home at the Hellsing mansion, but it had been especially annoying in the last thirty minutes. There was no way around it, and no way to say it gently.

_Just come out and say it; I'm a vampire and I've been living with Dracula and his childe for the last few weeks. I went to Rio and did nothing as dozens of men were slaughtered. Oh, and I stole a helicopter with a one-eyed Frenchman. _If the Dracula part didn't kill him, me stealing something would surely do Timmy in.

The trip up the stairs flew by, and I was too busy being sarcastic to do anything. By the time I had snapped myself out of my thoughts, there was a little girl clinging to me like grim death.

"Auntie Birdie!" Claire shrieked, her voice hurting my sensitive ears. She was dressed in pink pajamas, telling me just how early it was. Susan had been going out for grocery shopping and Timothy had probably still been on leave from work.

It was so normal that I could have cried.

I picked up Claire and held her, loving her warmth, feeling her innocence. I realized after a second or so that I was salivating, the scent of her virgin blood making my fangs lengthen.

I did start to cry. My tears were warm and that meant they were completely saturated with blood, probably bright red against my white skin. With an ashamed sob I put Claire down.

My niece looked up at me in confusion, wondering why I had come over to play but had broken down in ugly tears instead. A smudge of blood was on her cheek, where her face had been touching mine. More drops fell on her as I cried harder. I had cried more in the last eight hours than I had in the past year.

"What's the matter?!" Timothy said, his voice high and almost a scream. I caught a little trace of his thoughts. What was wrong with me, what was happening? "What is wrong?"

I sniffed violently, out of habit rather than need. Vampires did not get runny noses. It was a wonder we had tears. With my already burgundy sleeve I wiped my face, feeling the tendrils of wool drag across my cheek.

"Nothing is wrong," I said, my own voice no better than his. It was soft, strained, cracking from repressed sobs. "This is what I am. A big blood sac with teeth." My sleeve became too damp so I used my hand, staining my palm red.

Susan snapped out of her shock and got me some tissues. They were not the rough, greasy napkins that Pip had given me, but soft and scented, with lotion to prevent noses from becoming chafed during a cold. I was only given a few so I tried to stop crying, trying to rub my cheeks raw with the rose-scented tissues.

"Don't worry, Willow," she said kindly to me. I really believed her. "Just tell us what happened." She licked her thumb and rubbed away a persistent blood stain at the corner of one of my eyes. "Do you want Claire to leave?"

"No." Claire is just young enough to find vampirism cool. Like being a movie star, or a Disney character. "No, I can do this. Just promise you won't laugh or scream or something."

"If you're sick Willow, you can tell us," Timothy said. He looked at me as if bleeding from the eyes was something normal. Perhaps he had been watching medical dramas again and thought I was on drugs.

If scientists ever got to study vampires, they would try to say that it was a special virus. That's bull.

"I…" My throat was closing up. I couldn't breathe. I didn't need to breathe. Damn.

"What's the secret!?" Claire shouted again. Why did she yell so much? Did she think of us as giants who were so tall that she needed to speak louder in order to be heard? I sometimes felt that way around Sir Hellsing or Alucard, their auras stifling all my words into incomprehensible chatter.

"Go on Willow," Susan said from beside me. She did not hold my hand, as I had shoved them in my pockets. She might be a little wary of touching me now. "We'll believe you."

I don't know how they did it. Suddenly it all came out of my mouth like vomit.

"I'm a vampire," I whispered.

At first I thought they hadn't heard me, because the words had rode on an exhale. But their faces explained it all to me. They had heard, and they were stunned. This was not the 'I'm pregnant' silence or the 'I've done drugs' silence. This was the fucking 'I'm a vampire' silence. This was beyond anything I could have imagined.

Claire was all for it, of course. "Vampire! Auntie Birdie's a vampire!" She play-growled at me, like children playing pretend. I didn't have the courage to play-growl back, since Susan might flip. She hated violent games of pretend. Everyone was a princess in her games.

"Willow…" I wanted Timothy to say something along the lines of 'that isn't funny; tell the truth', but he didn't. "Explain."

Once again I puked words. They came out of me like water, flowing endlessly over each other until even Claire was silent.

I told them about how Benjamin had come home acting strange. He had come home from school four hours late, and when mother asked him where he had been and why he hadn't called he said nothing more than simple 'I dunno's. He had never done anything wrong before, so mother had let it slide, and soon we had been having supper quietly.

And then Benjamin had snapped. I knew now that his sire had probably gotten him as he was walking home and sucked him dry, but never finished the job. He had probably turned and walked home in the shadows, his thirst pulling at his heart. Just making it to dinner, when we were all surrounded by weapons, had probably been a feat.

I tried to cut out the bloody parts for Claire, but Susan understood even before the words came out and covered the little girl's ears. I went on to explain how Benjamin had taken one look at my mother's food and scowled. He became nothing more than a savage, hunger-crazed vampire, and taken his butter knife to my father's throat. That had happened in mere seconds, and my dad never knew what did him. In fact, I distinctly remember his body frozen in the position of buttering some bread.

My mother's back had been turned to us as she got some napkins, so Benjamin had simply flicked his knife at her back. I had hoped her heart had popped before she had heard the slurping noises of Benny latching onto my father's throat.

All the while, Oliver and I were still staring at our plates, making cracks about the potatoes. I don't remember what joke had made me laugh so hard, but it had been a good one. So good that I never noticed Benjamin sucking my father dry until it was too late.

Suddenly Oliver had paled, and he had drawn in a breath to scream. Benjamin had aimed his fork at him at that point, shutting him up. There had been an exchange of conversation, and then it went all to hell. Even more so.

I don't remember why Benjamin had wanted to turn us. Perhaps he had been sated with the blood of my father and was bored, or perhaps he had felt that euphoria that Alucard had been taking about and wanted to make some disciples. All I know is that an hour after he had come through the door, all smiles and 'I'm sorry I was late', I was lying on my side in the living room, my neck aching and Oliver shivering violently beside me.

A mere bite is enough to turn a human. Some really powerful vampires, such as Alucard, could probably turn someone just by pricking their finger, but for us yearlings it takes a little more. Now I'm extremely glad that my mother and father had preached about the wonders of abstinence, otherwise one of us might have become a ghoul.

Timothy's eyes were shiny as I described how Oliver died. Benjamin had just been turned, and not nearly strong enough to make two fledglings in one day. I had been bitten first, Oliver last. He died halfway through the transformation, vomiting blood onto mother's good carpet until he had been nothing more than a husk. I remembered his empty jaundiced eyes, filled to the brim with pink tears.

After seeing the mess that Oliver had made, Benjamin locked me in the bathroom, which had a tile floor that would be easier to clean. I had died in there, feeling my heart beat slower until my blood had stilled. That had hurt like hell, with my lungs drying out and my vision darkening to grey as my brain shut down temporarily. But there had been strength in my dying limbs, enough for me to dig my sore nails into the walls and pull down.

For a while I just moaned on the floor, until the predicable fledgling thirst set in. It burned my throat, squeezed my heart, blinded me to everything but the wonderful smell of blood.

But I couldn't bring myself to touch my mother's body. I thought this not because she was my mummy, who had raised me since birth, but because there was a much warmer, fresher target who filled me with _hate_ nearby.

So when Benjamin had opened the bathroom door to welcome me to a new life, I had punched him in the face. My newborn body had been weak, but even in that state my punch had stunned him long enough for me to rush to a chair and snap off a leg. And when Benjamin had retaliated, screeching curses, I had plunged the splintered leg through his heart and opened my mouth to the spurt of blood that came after.

After so much talking, my throat was dry and sore. Parched even. As silence made my ears ring, I wished I had taken a blood pouch to-go. The throbbing of the veins in their necks was distracting, but I would shrivel and die before I bit them.

"If you don't believe me, the guy that's coming to pick me up is more convincing," I said, wringing my hands until the knuckles shone white.

Timothy suddenly came alive. "No Willow, we believe you…I think." I looked at Susan and she nodded stiffly, her eyes wide. "What you say makes sense – shockingly. But could you…explain where you've been staying for all this time?"

A little trickle of relief dripped into my veins. "I've joined the Hellsing organization." Does that sound as pathetic as I think it does? "They…um…hunt vampires." Yeah, it does.

"Oh…" Susan found that she was still plugging Claire's ears, so she uncovered them. The little girl had taken to humming 'London Bridge'. "I've heard of them. They're one of our clients." No duh. Susan worked at an insurance agency. I suspected Sir Hellsing was their _biggest_ client. "Is that what they do? Hunt vampires?"

It sounds stupid coming from someone else too. Vampire hunting was cool back in the day, but now it just sounded dumb. Plus, saying 'I hunt vampires with Dracula' is a bit contradictory. I sighed as these thoughts plagued me, rubbing Claire's head when she hugged my leg and started singing a song about vampires.

"Willow," Timothy began, coming closer. He did not seem wary of me. "What did you mean by 'the guy who's coming to pick me up'? Are you leaving again?"

I kept back more tears. I did not have any blood to spare. "Yes…that's the reason why I came to see you. You need to get out of London. Today. As soon as possible."

Susan paled as Claire started on about fangs in her cute little song. She should sing it to Alucard. "Why? What's happening?"

My blood was pumping so fast that I couldn't slow it down with a few breaths. My head ached with a dehydrated migraine, and I felt my fangs lengthen. I don't know why I was so thirsty. I contributed it to fear.

If you think being a vampire hunter is stupid, you haven't heard what I said next.

"Because there is a battalion of vampire _freaking_ Nazis heading towards London, and we don't know when they're coming but we do know that they have a _lot_ of man power, and you guys _need_ to get out and Sir Hellsing said that if you got out now she might be able to get you on the same plane as the soldier's families and it will take you to the States, but only if you leave _now!_" Wow, talk about a run-on sentence. And I think I repeated myself several times.

There was no time for awkward silences now. Timothy stroked my hair, trying to calm me down. "How do you know this Willow? Just breathe and tell us?"

"Auntie doesn't need to breathe!" Claire squealed, totally oblivious to my nervous breakdown. "She's a _vampire_!" Thanks, Claire.

"I know this because they're _targeting_ the Hellsing organization!" I dragged a hand across my face, wanting to feel it. "Or more specifically –," I put on a fake German accent, "'that man who looks so joyful standing there.'" Alucard needed to stop pissing people off.

Timothy and Susan had no idea what was going on, but at least they believed me. If I had gone to anyone else with the story of vampire Nazis, I would have been institutionalized.

"Okay, Willow," Susan said, smiling.

Holy shit, I was the one dreaming. "Any second now I'm going to turn into Dracula's sadistic alter ego," I gasped and clapped a hand over my mouth.

"What?" Timothy asked, bewildered. Claire found my outburst hilarious and squealed with laughter.

"Sorry. I've been a little stressed these days." I needed to duct tape my mouth shut one of these days.

"Stressed doesn't even cover it."

_Fuck_. Instead of me turning into Alucard, he just appeared in the doorway, turning this dream into a nightmare straight from the circus. I whipped around, seeing him taking up the little doorway with his two meter tall form, complete with billowing coat, thick boots, and his silly hat. _Please don't start laughing, Timothy_.

"Have I used up my two hours already?" I squeaked out, hoping that Timothy didn't find out that Alucard had threatened me. This was one bully that he could not beat up for me.

"No, but I need to leave soon," Alucard grunted, regarding Claire from behind his tinted sunglasses. She was staring at him in awe, as if this man in red was some sort of character from Disneyland Paris. Or Santa. Both mental pictures burned the eyes.

This was like an ugly meeting between your boss and your family. Only in this case my 'boss' was a nut job vampire with guns, and my family was stubborn. It would not end well.

"I'm Timothy Brenner." Oh god Tim. Don't try to socialize with it. My brother stuck out a hand to be shaken, and I expected Alucard to nibble at it.

But I was blown away. Alucard _actually_ knew how to greet someone in a way that did not involve a bullet to the head. He shook my brother's hand firmly, but did not smile or return the greeting. Oh well, one out of three was so above my expectations that it was in _space_.

I grimaced, and Alucard's eyes flicked to my mouth. He scowled.

"You are hungry," he drawled. Thank you, Mr. Obvious.

My family stared at me as if I was a loose gun. I knew Timmy was picturing Benjamin stabbing my mother in the back. "I'm fine," I said, a slight whistle to my words due to my long fangs.

"You are." Alucard let out a little sigh, completely inaudible to human ears. He reached into his coat, and for a horrible second I thought he was fed up with me and about to put a hole in my head. But instead he pulled out an ordinary pocket knife. Regarding my brother and his wife, he said, "Which one of you is going to feed her?"

After staring at the pocketknife for a moment, Timothy snatched it up and pricked his finger. He gave his finger to me, holding it face up so the drops of blood wouldn't fall on the carpet. Susan held Claire close again to protect her from the gruesome truth. If I drank Tim's blood, it would be the end of the joking. I would not be some new, stoic Willow with red eyes and bloody tears. I would be a vampire to them.

"If I let you do this, you have to promise to come back," Timothy said as a drop of blood welled up and flowed along the lines of his finger. I stared at it with need. "You have to promise to be there in the airport when the war is over."

"I never thought about doing anything else," I gasped, and latched onto his finger.

This was my second true feeding, but it was really like my first. Drinking vampire blood or the crap from medical pouches was nothing compared to this. For one thing, Benjamin's blood had tasted like shit, cold and clammy and full of nasty memories and thoughts. And medical blood tasted like turpentine and cancer. This was nothing but sweet nourishment. I teased the wound open with my tongue, wanting more but not letting my fangs touch my brother's skin.

Finally I tore myself away, feeling my face flush with embarrassment. Susan was looking at me with something that wasn't quite horror, but it wasn't curiosity either. Timothy was swooning and marveling at the healed cut on his finger. Claire was fumbling at the hands covering her eyes. Alucard was staring at the ceiling as if it was Sir Hellsing in nothing but some really lacy undergarments.

"Let's go," Alucard said once he realized I was done. He looked at my family. "You too. Grab some money and follow us. My master has sent a town car to take you to the airport."

Susan was flustered. "Aren't you going to tell people? Or are you going to let all of London get crushed under these vampires?" Just hearing her say that was like breaking the fourth wall. My work was bleeding into my family life.

Alucard looked at her like he looked at Claire – she was a mere child with stubborn ideas. "It is up to the Queen to decide what do to, and she has entrusted us with terminating these warmongers." That there is an excellent example of the pot calling the kettle black. "Would you prefer London to become a city of chaos?"

With a ruffled sigh, Susan picked Claire up and handed her to Timothy. He flinched when his once-bleeding finger touched her pajamas, thinking he had gotten blood on them. "Give me a moment to get our wallets." She rushed away into her bedroom, coming out with her purse. For a second she ducked into Claire's bedroom to get some pink overalls and a white shirt, so that my niece wasn't in her pajamas during the entire plane ride.

A wave of relief washed over me. They were going to get out. They were going to be safe.

Now I just needed to contend with the vampire Nazis and not die.

We walked back outside in silence, Claire whining a bit about having to go outside in her PJs. But she got over it when Timothy said that they were going on vacation. Claire loved vacations.

The town car was driven by a Hellsing soldier with a wonky knee from the attack on the mansion. But he was a superb driver who wasn't afraid of breaking the law occasionally to get the job done. As my remaining family piled into the backseat, I stared at him through the open passenger window.

"If they don't get out in time," I growled to him, not caring that I was being a bitch, "you won't have to worry about the Nazis getting you."

The soldier smiled at me. "Important, are they? I'll make sure they're at the airport before you're back at the mansion."

I dropped my badass façade. "Thanks."

With the slam of a door, Timothy and his family were safely in the car. In less than an hour they would be in the air, flying away from London faster than any dirigible, and towards the States. They would board up with the other families of the soldiers (the mercenaries had no family in London) in a nice hotel in New York, and watch the news and pray for my safety.

When they were gone, I looked and Alucard and let the words 'thank you' roll off my tongue.

Alucard looked down on me in more ways than one. "My master ordered me to be civil. Now come on, Walter is probably waiting for me to get back." He started off down the sidewalk, brushing people aside as if they were nothing more than the paper targets he aimed for at the shooting range. He was scant inches away from literally _shoving_ people out of his way.

"Why would he be waiting for you?" I asked, jogging to keep up with him. A human would be out of breath and left behind in moments, but this pace – while making my gun bang against my ankle even more than necessary – was easy to keep up. It was a touch more exhausting than sleeping, I swear. Luckily Alucard was too proud to run at a human pace in public. He either went at the speed of light or he walked.

"Because I am going on another mission."

xxx

By 'another mission', Alucard meant he was taking an illegal SR-71 blackbird and going to kick some serious ass. Just _looking_ at him, I knew that he was all revved up and raring to go and blast something to hell. He vibrated like a stereo speaker, emitting a purring noise. All he needed was some claws to knead the soil with and he would officially be a beast ready for the hunt.

"You are to guard my master," Alucard said to me, his eyes flashing as we stood outside the headquarters of British National Security. "The police girl is at the manor with the mercenaries, so she can't do it. Just remember this – if my master dies, there will be no one to hold me back.

I nodded stiffly, trying to look like a determined vampire instead of a young woman who was scant inches from wetting herself. "Why me?" Didn't Sir Hellsing have seventeen armored guards all armed with Uzis and the ability to divide by zero? No? WHY NOT!?

Alucard scoffed as he walked away down the street, as if he was just going to get some doughnuts instead of attacking a royal ship. "Because Walter is not as quick as he used to be. And should one of you get separated from my master, or should one of you fall, the other will still be there."

He trusted me as far as he could throw – never mind, he could throw me pretty damn far. But seriously, why was I the scapegoat? Even though it was for Walter, it still pissed me off, because Alucard thought I was too dimwitted to figure it out on my own.

Just to please him, I gave Alucard a smile that belonged on the face of a complete, happy idiot. Luckily his back was turned, so he didn't see me flip him the bird while I grinned stupidly.

When he had turned the corner, I looked at the door. It looked like any other door, but for some reason it scared the hell out of me.

"This day is not going to end well," I mumbled to myself before walking inside.

I could feel it in my bones.

xxx

Kana: Have you guessed yet? Here's a hint – they make themselves so 'splody in one of the volumes.

Yes, I have Sir Penwood's first name. I'm not gonna put it here, cause for some reason it just feels wrong to put my real name in a fanfic. Feel free to shriek 'NO WAI! UR NAME IS xxx!' in a review though. As if my name would be Kana :3

And I'm also working on another fic that I want to finish before I post. Here's another hint: it begins after the Hellsing series is over (even that GOD AWFUL epilogue), it involves witches, and it takes place in a magical land where people use the words 'jimmies', 'bubbler', and 'wicked'. If you guess where that is, you get Alucard for a month.

Review Responses: So few reviews. I am so sad…;-; You guys were being so nice and doing so good (though the amount of reviews might be because I never update…ever)

blekmedelninjan: _Pshaw_, a month is nothing compared to the length of time between some of my updates. I don't think I've even looked at a certain fic in over five months. BUT; I usually finish things, unless I seriously hate them. And yes, there will be much action in upcoming chapters, though I am not very good at action sequences. And I'm still a little iffy on where Willow will be near the end. I already know she will be with Integra during the battle, but whether or not she goes onto the Hindenburg II is another matter altogether. Thanks for asking though.

VampireEgyptian: And here I thought juu had ABANDONED ME. I was all sad, cause I seem to be losing some of my old reviewers. MEH dearest friends. Though you're the mysterious, doesn't-have-an-account friend. You be a mystery. Like whatever is in the chicken soup at school. And I will totally let Kuroshitsuji take over my life, no matter how shitty the anime is, with its hermaphrodite angels. Mmmmmn, Sebastian. Sexier than Alucard, though not as sexy as _Vladi_card. Oh yes. It evens out eventually. I'm working on a one-shot HellsingxKuroshitsuji crossover, though it had to bend reality a little. It'll be good, so don't hate me ;-; They're like MADE for each other.

Rochelle: Why yes, I am awesome. Oh, the chapter. Well, I guess I'm not _that_ awesome. I don't think every female Hellsing fan has the hots for Alucard. I know that my friend got all hot and spicy over the Major (she thought he was cute :3), and now another of my friends likes him too – she draws Hellsing so good its like Hirano did it, I swear. I lurve them both, crazy Nazis that they are. Nuuuuuuuuu, I wanna see the sixth OVA. I've only seen up to the fifth. Bugger the slowness of America.

marora: Gah, I still can't see what I did wrong. I need to send it to a friend so he can point out how bad my grasp of the English language is. I am really proud of that scene, since usually me dialogue blows like the WIND. Infomercials? Cool! Hey, with your ability to grab people's attention and my shitty hopeless romantic way of life, we could make a remotely successful soap opera! But let's keep our abilities to ourselves, cause I hate soaps.

Sarah Victoria Cullen: There isn't anything wrong with you. Believe me. I've tackled people at conventions, stalked an albino for a mile, gotten a sliding hug from a gay guy, seen someone rapped by their own shoe, been poked in the ass by the Elder Wand, and frequently talk baby-talk to my evil bijon frise. Nothing wrong with me either XP

Mjumju: Yes I am…are you going to kill me for that? ;-; I have a bad feeling you might.

End Responses

I just napped form three to eight. I'm gonna be up ALL NIGHT LONG. :D But first I need to omnom some clam chowder from a can, which has basil instead of parsley in it cause I don't read spice labels properly. And then I shall eat this apple. AND THEN I SHALL USE THIS BLANKET. (shot)

Yaaaaaaaaay, my cousin just had a baby girl. Her name is Riley. She has spiky hair.

Next Chapter: I dunno. Perhaps I'll wrap it up in one more chapter, perhaps there will be two more before the epilogue. Either way, this fic needs to end before it gets too long.

Review because you're like me and want some hawt Deathwing x…Integra action, just because that pairing makes no sense whatsoever. She would become his dominatrix.


	12. Making Decisions

Kana: FFFFFF. I totally intended to update this in October, and now look! ITS 2010! I suck so much we needed _a whole_ year to finish this bugger. I was hoping to finish it in less…gah.

**Disclaimer:**__I own nothing except Willow. And myself. And my blue Oldsmobile Alero named Grimmjow with the bad defroster. That's right, I named my car.

"Hunters in WoW will no longer use mana." (Kana's brain explodes)

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Eleven: Making Decisions **

xxx

Standing outside a door for an hour and a half may sound like fun to some people – most notably sadists – but to me it's boring and it makes my feet hurt. My dirty feet, all covered in dirt and blood and smelling like wine. I sat down on the floor, bracing my back against the wall near the door, and took a sniff. Oh yeah, that wine bottle did more than cut my feet. It made me smell like a drunken drifter. A fancy drunken drifter.

I tried to hum a little tune, hoping to drown out the talk coming from the conference room. I really did not need to hear about vampire Nazis. All I wanted as for Alucard to return and for my job to be simply to _not die. _

Sighing heavily, I leaned against the door, feeling the cool wood against my cheek. Isn't this what the Americans developed nuclear weapons for? What about the Soviet Union? What was the Cold War about? Vampires couldn't beat a nice big h-bomb.

Sliding my hand down my leg, I felt my revolver in its ankle holster, being heavy and comforting. It was full of silver bullets, which had tingled when I first strapped it on. Now I could barely feel them.

Suddenly everything wasn't so quiet. Suddenly all hell broke loose, and I was standing in the middle of chaos.

I was grabbed, half deaf from what I was hearing, half blind from what I was seeing. Completely dumb from the shock of it all. This was impossible, there was no betrayal where I lived, nothing like that. I was a normal young adult who had never fought before.

I got over my surprise quickly. Fuck that, I was a vampire, and I was pissed. People stupid enough to trifle with the woman who kept Alucard on a leash were going to die with shocked expressions.

Vaguely aware of my status as a hostage, I growled. There was no time for my gun. Walter was in action, and so was I. I felt my fangs and heard the scream of the man holding me, and I tasted his acidic, disgusting blood. His cold flesh was between my teeth, breaking and splitting like a fruit, and the blood flowed as I crushed the veins in his wrist. I was biting at his hand, then up his arm.

This guy tasted like shit.

The world sped up again as I had my first coherent thought. I was a biting machine, all teeth and rage. Bite bite bite. Forearm shoulder neck. Bite bite bite. Neck neck neck.

I left go of the traitor's neck and got ready to go for another. But there was no one left, as Walter had eliminated them while I made a mess of myself. That was really emasculating.

Shaking from all the excitement, I spat out the enemy vampire's blood. It tasted like cold acid, burning my mouth and throat. I was choking, coughing, feeling bloody tears run from my eyes. There was a pitiful sound as I fell to my knees, retching.

Someone held a glass of foul smelling liquid to my mouth. Out of habit I swallowed, and my tongue burned with the horrible taste of ale. Bile rose in my throat and I vomited blood and beer. I sucked in an unnecessary breath, feeling the burns on the inside of my cheeks and on my tongue.

"Who did that?" I asked, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. Blood was still dribbling from my mouth and onto my jumper.

"I did," Walter said. Oh ho, Mr. Jack of All Trades.

"How'd you know I hate ale?"

"A hunch."

I looked at the charred corpses of the vampire I had bitten. They had probably thought I intended to steal his memories and had burned him to prevent that. My throat was already healing. I could feel little pinches as my shriveled skin spread out. I needed blood again, but looking at the frightened faces around me, I wasn't about to get any.

"Pretty awesome hunch."

There was one man who had not risen from his chair. He stared at me in horror, but a little bit of curiosity sparkled behind his eyes.

"I know you," I said, eyeing him with blood still dripping onto my sweater. "You're the one Seras sat on."

He sputtered, denying that day ever happened. I do the same thing, but for different reasons. He got a face full of panties. I got to watch Alucard eat someone.

"This is Sir Penwood," Sir Hellsing said, lighting up a cigar.

Somehow a 'nice to meet you' coming from my bloody mouth just didn't seem right, so I just smiled at him, trying to seem friendly. I failed and was left grinning at an extremely frightened human. So much for British manners. Doesn't he know that when a vampire bursts in and saves his life that he's supposed to wave at them?

"Sooo…" I looked at Sir Hellsing, who regarded me with amusement. "Alucard told me to watch you."

Sir Hellsing looked at the traitor I had shredded. "You're doing an adequate job."

Gee – thanks.

xxx

I felt like throwing up as soon as we stepped outside. The air was full of smoke, a thin veil that covered everything with the smell of fire. My eyes itched but did not water, and when I breathed I did not cough. Sir Hellsing covered her mouth with a sleeve while we walked to her Rolls Royce, and I heard her gasp in relief when she slid into the backseat.

Walter and I had a silent mind-battle on where I was going to sit. His eyes demanded I sit in the front, while my expression said I should sit in the trunk. Like hell I was going to sit in the back with Sir Hellsing. After thirty seconds I was sulking in the front seat, buckling myself in while Walter started the Royce. He flipped on the wipers to get rid of some of the dust the smoke had carried, and through the glass I could see that on the other side of the Thames, London was burning. A faint orange glow outlined the buildings that had yet to be consumed.

I turned my face into my seat as we began to drive. My ears were picking up muffled sounds. Screaming, gunshots, explosions. The most prominent was the sound of crackling and the sudden sharp pops of wood being eaten by flames. A giant zeppelin hung over that half of the city like a bloated shadow. I sighed and turned my face deeper into the upholstery of the seat.

We drove over the Bridge, and a stone dropped into my stomach. As we drove by, I saw two people jump into the river, even though the fire was still half a mile away. I pressed my cheek to the window to see where they were in the water, but all I saw was darkness.

"Walter, I saw -." I was interrupted by a sudden gunshot. The glass on my window cracked severely, a little nugget of metal caught in it.

Someone had shot at me when my face was pressed against the window.

"Hold on." Sir Hellsing's voice was muffled by the tinted window that separated our sides, but I could hear the professional-sounding _click_ as she slid back the pump on a shotgun she pulled from under the backseat.

Sir Hellsing rolled down her window and took aim. She aimed for the figures that had chased the two people into the Thames. With her tongue between her teeth she fired. One of the figures when down. Sir Hellsing ducked to the side to avoid the bullet that missed her and embedded itself into the window on the opposite side of the car. She ejected the spent shell and loaded another one. Within a minute the two figures were gone.

"Nice shot, Sir," I mumbled, touching the bulge in my window where the bullet was. Do Rolls Royce's come with bullet proof glass? I doubt it.

Sir Hellsing sat back in her seat, keeping her window open and smoking a cigar. She didn't reply.

I said hello to the upholstery of my chair again and closed my eyes to the sounds of London dying. For some reason I wasn't worried. Sir Hellsing could take care of herself; Walter had the reflexes of some sort of cobra. The only problem was me, and no one really cared if I died.

"_You have to promise to come back_." Timothy's voice floated through my head.

Damn.

I was snapped out of my thoughts as Walter slammed on the breaks. I was shoved forward, feeling Sir Hellsing's foot bracing against the back of my seat to keep herself from sprawling all over the floor of the backseat. My seatbelt choked me, drawing blood when it dug too far into my neck.

While we skidded, Walter turned the wheel all the way to the left, giving whatever had made him brake so hard in the first place the nice broadside of a speeding Rolls Royce to look at. The car groaned in response to such abuse, but not as much as the ghoul that slammed into my door when the Royce smashed into it. Its face cracked my window even more, and a smear of blood was all it left behind when it vanished under the tires.

Sir Hellsing shot at vampires as Walter ran down their ghouls. I felt oddly out of place and very useless as I just sat, stunned, as Walter floored the gas and turned the car so sharply that the backend fishtailed. He had this look of excitement on his face, as if adrenaline was pushing him to the end of a cliff that he was just dying to jump off of. Without a parachute. He kind of looked like a kid.

"Shit!" I yelped as a vampire grinned at me from the other side of my beat up window. All it had to do was knock on the glass a little and suddenly I had a lap full of broken glass and a smiling German in my face.

I rammed my fist into the vampire's face, breaking its nose. Before it could recoil I dug my nails into the hair that peeped out of the lip of its helmet and _tugged_. Instead of pulling its hair out, I scalped it slightly.

Walter looked at the flap of skin hanging off the wisps of hair in my hand and gave me a pat on the shoulder. "Well done, Miss Brenner."

I threw it out the window and stared ahead.

The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful; Walter didn't blindside anymore ghouls, and Integra only had to gun down a few more Nazi's eating some Englishmen. The radio gave off a farewell from the man who we had left at the military operations building, and then there was an explosive amount of ominous static that signaled his demise.

And then, the worst possible thing happened. We were driving past burning houses, past ghouls, past burning ghouls, when Walter skidded to a stop.

"What's wrong?" Sir Hellsing demanded, lying slumped against her door. She was surrounded by shell casings, a few strands of hair plastered to her forehead. She looked borderline haphazard, but not enough to be really noticeable.

I knew what was wrong. A tingle of something strange and ugly tickled my nose, and when I drew breath it stung my lungs. Something primal in my brain clicked, and I let out a tiny growl.

Whether it was from my brother's sire's (my grandsire?) blood in my veins, turning me German for a split second, or just my subconscious adding its two cents worth from years of history classes that I would never use, but suddenly I blurted out _Schutzstaffel_. The shadowy figure at the end of the dark alley shuddered and turned its face towards us, giving us a good look at a wide, staring eye, its pupil slowly dilating.

There was a slam as Walter closed the driver's side door. I jumped and tried not to wail. "Walter! You can't leave m – us! You can't!" No. Please no.

"_If my master dies, there will be no one to hold me back_." I had a serious case of Mental Flashback tonight.

But Walter was gone, and the figure at the end of the long alley was running towards him. I fumbled for my seatbelt, desperate to get into the driver's seat even though I had no idea how to drive. But I had to get Sir Hellsing away from the fighting. If she died….

Sir Hellsing was behind the wheel before I could even get out of my seatbelt. She jerked the car into reverse and hit the gas. I was thrown around again as Sir Hellsing tore out of the alley and down another road, crashing into trash bins and ghouls and occasionally over burning pools of gasoline. The Royce fishtailed some more, this time more violently, and I had the sudden notion that Sir Hellsing didn't know how to drive either.

Behind us came the tap-tap-tapping of sharp, new leather on tar. I looked in the side-view mirror and saw dozens of vampires running after the car, their knees lifting in sync with each other. Their faces were split by half-moon grins full of teeth, and their hands reached towards us with little grabby motions.

I was jerked to the side so fast that my neck cracked when it snapped to the right. Sir Hellsing had swerved to avoid the troop of vampires running right at us, and when I shrieked in fear she bit her lip. Behind the pack she had just missed was another group, this time armed with guns that hit the windshield with horrible thuds.

"Sir Hellsing…" I was picking up images from the excited vampiric minds around me, something that had never happened before. I saw a long, large gun, tipped with something familiar. "Sir Hellsing…"

She couldn't hear me above the squeal of tires as she drove, not seeing the vampire behind us with the…

"Integra!" I screamed as I saw a flash of orange in the vampire's mind. "_Bazooka!_"

Sir Hellsing veered sharply to the right, avoiding the blast but driving us into some sort of brick wall. I saw the impact seconds before it happened, and saw that Sir Hellsing had neglected to buckle in. I threw an arm over her, latching her to the seat like grim death.

We hit the wall and my seatbelt locked into place, securing me tightly to my seat. I was thrown forward anyway, the belt cutting deeply into my neck like it had before. I dug my nails into Sir Hellsing's seat, keeping her in place without the injuries that my douche bag seatbelt was doing to me. Her hand groped for her shotgun before the momentum of the crash had even stopped, fumbling blindly for it in the backseat.

She failed to find her gun, and while I grabbed for mine in its ankle holster, Sir Hellsing had a hand on the hilt of the sword she kept at her hip. The vampires were grouping outside the ruined Royce, shouting taunts and death threats. My heart stuttered and tried to beat, but it failed and I was left following Sir Hellsing out the door as she slashed at the vampires.

The Nazis had covered their mouths, as if they were ashamed of their fangs. I bared mine at them as I aimed between their eyes. I gunned two down while Sir Hellsing destroyed five more. But even if I had the shooting skills of Seras, or even Alucard, there were just too many vampires swarming us, murmuring gibes and shrieking about how horrible we were going to die.

One of the vampires suddenly sprouted dozens of bayonets, and fell to the ground choking to death on its own blood. The other Nazis screamed in fear and looked around.

"Willow!" Sir Hellsing whipped around to face me. I was still aiming my gun at a German, but I had run out of bullets and hadn't reloaded yet.

"_Killing judge_," the vampires mumbled in unison.

"I can't!" I was searching my body for a second magazine. "Alucard said -!"

"_Angel Dust_."

"It doesn't matter what Alucard said!" Sir Hellsing cried back at me. She was looking at the rooftops, scanning them for something ominous. A shiver went down my spine as I remembered the priest in Brazil, and the bayonet that had parted my hair. "If you get a head start he won't care about you!"

"_Father_."

"_GO NOW!_"

I ran. So help me god I ran like the wind, dodging the flying Bible pages and crying out when one of them brushed my skin. I preformed feats of acrobatics like I had never done before, leaping onto trash bins and launching myself into the air to hover above the pages. On the roof of one building a few meters away, I saw a figure in white clothing take aim at me, but think better of it when a Nazi vampire went for its face.

Below me, London laughed.

xxx

Kana: I know. I suck and you all are disappointed in me. But I _swear_, if you had my algebra teacher, you would have so much stress that it caused writer's block too. I've seriously written all of ten pages worth of original fiction since November. Only now, when my grades are halfway decent, did that block lift and allow me to write. _FINALLY_.

All I can say is thank you for putting up with my crap :D I can only give you six/seven pages of random shit. I don't think there was much snark in this chapter, but oh well.

Review Responses: SO. MANY. REVIEWS. (I guess this is what happens when I don't update in months (shot))

Rochelle: I think everyone would jump overboard if they saw a random screaming chick. Ah, but I'm an Alucard fan over anything else. (crosses fingers for the next OVA) I want Vladicard _now_. And I also want the English dubs. But that's not happening anytime soon.

DarkSandHanyou28: FF. YOU DID. I JUST HATE YOU. :D Kidding, kidding. I love ALL reviewers. I guess I just missed yours (flails). You have to understand, when I finish a chapter, I get it up within the HOUR. I don't reread it, I don't do anything. I get it up because I usually haven't updated in months. So I sometimes miss lovely reviews. THE ANSWER IS 42. Its also something else. We'll find out in time, when I post it :3

VampireEgyptian: o.o I kind of want to ask how you know this, though I might have said it before X3 I'm narcissistic like that. You should go to Connecticon, cause that's the only con my friends and I are going to this year (even though there's an equally large con only two hours away from us – we like Connecticon better; it holds memories of Nazis and pickles).

marora: Hmmn, Alucard was a bit OOC there. But I seriously doubted he was going to sweep Claire into his arms and start squealing baby noises. The very idea makes kittens die. I also doubted he was going to BUST IN and EAT EVERYONE. So I settled for stoicism.

TaikeruSohma: That's flattering and yet somehow creepy. Thankies! :3

Aracade: Usually my writing sound hollow when I'm forcing it. I don't think I forced it at all during this chapter, which is a blessing :D You should totally review when it sounds hollow, so that I know when my writing is getting generic.

blekmedelninjan: I freaking love cheese :D but not in writing. Those scenes had cheese coming out its little invisible ears.

BlazingMidnightRain: I don't think Willow has any ass-kicking in her. Seras is kickass. Alucard is kickass. Willow is just lucky and snarky. Yay for ass-kicking snark.

The Wicked That Mourns Just: You're right. Hellsing doesn't sound right in Japanese. Alucard doesn't sound as much like a rapist. We can understand Anderson. The Major isn't a disgrace to all German accents everywhere. Ew.

OMGeodude: :D thanks for your kind words. I've tried to keep Willow out of the spotlight, like an observer that just so happens to be part of the action. I actually didn't know I was doing it until three chapters in XD

Blue-Eyes White Knight-BEWK: Thanks!

Sonofsparda: I did? (checks chapter). Looks normal to me. Perhaps there is something wrong with , cause sometimes I see bolded chapters when I know the author didn't mean to do it. But being critical is good. It makes for an interesting and enlightening review.

lunabelle0: Thank you so much. I always write OC stories for readers like you.

Fellow Sufferer: Thank you too. I'm always happy when people say my OC story is the only one they like. I've seen a few good OC stories, but that's just me. I'll read anything with a halfway decent plot and an author with a grasp of the English language.

End Responses

Kana: There should be a fangasm right here; Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver comes out on Sunday. Guess who's blowing her gas money on it? Me.

Also – go read the Dominic Deegan webcomic. Now. BEST pun/fart/dick jokes out there, all wrapped up in a really good plot with art that gets better over time. DEATH FROM ABOVE.

Next Chapter: We finish up the story with Alucard returning to London just in time to find Willow wandering the city alone. Without Integra. Will he kill her? Will you buy this soap? Buy some soap.


	13. Making Oneself Useful

Kana: Two essays due within a week, and a math project due soon on the history of quadratics (which would be AMAZING if I didn't have to make up my own problems). I GOT BLISTAHS ON ME FINGAHS.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Hellsing. I also have nothing snarky to say. It's a pity, really.

EDIT: Well, I finished my math project (EDIT AGAIN: And got a perfect score on it :3). When people explain math to me its like my brain just starts going 'pppt'. Or its like listening to someone explain math while Alucard gets undressed REAL slow in the background. "And if x to the second power equals two what is x – Kana, are you paying attention?" "THE EPITOME OF SEX IS BEHIND YOU MAN. MOVE TO THE LEFT."

"Hunters in WoW will use something akin to energy." (Kana's friend's brain explodes) (Kana mourns the loss of her friend's brain)

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Chapter Twelve: Making Oneself Useful **

xxx

It turns out I didn't have an extra magazine on me, so I was left wandering around a Nazi-infested London with a useless gun. I was probably in a state of shock for a while, as I didn't remember how I got away from where Sir Hellsing's Rolls Royce has crashed to the area I was currently in. Luckily I hadn't run into anything nasty and vicious on my way, otherwise I would have been elbow-deep in crap.

Since I had nothing better to do, I rummaged through a nearby apartment complex for anything I could use as a weapon. I chose a building that had been on fire a while ago, the charred, lonely-looking bricks still warm from the blaze. I don't know how the fire had been extinguished so fast, but I pushed that out of my mind and nudged open the door, which hung on one hinge and shrieked when I pushed at it.

Inside the complex I was hit with a wave of hot, putrid air. I gasped twice before remembering that I didn't need to breathe. It was like relearning to breathe through your nose again after a cold – it felt weird until it became a habit.

Aside from the initial stench, nothing really bad happened while I was in that first apartment building. I moved swiftly through each apartment, checking all the usual places for a revolver or a bowie knife.

On the second floor I found a couple of bodies in the master bedroom, burned while they slept. I went to pull their blankets over their faces, but realized that it would have been destroyed in the fire. I sighed and searched their bedside desk. Inside it was a Smith and Wesson, with two extra magazines stuffed in a pair of socks.

"Thanks," I murmured, stuffing the magazines in my slack's pocket and looked at the bullets already in the gun. "Whoa – full metal jacket."

Whoever they were, and whatever they did to need a handgun with such powerful and unique bullets, they were dead now. I snapped the magazine back into place and walked purposefully out of the apartment. Now I felt a little better about walking back to the mansion.

The mansion…

I felt a distant sensation of loss right about then. So far I had only been disturbed by the destruction of London, but not saddened. It reminded me of someone…

"_You're going to become _exactly_ like me_…"

I ground the heel of my hand into my forehead, wanting Alucard out of there _right now_. He was currently only a figment of my imagination, but I had a feeling that he would be here. Soon.

Forcing myself to feel sadness over the destruction of London, I continued walking. Occasionally I would come across a ghoul that shambled over to me, and I always half-expected it to groan _brains_ and attempt to suck mine out. But they usually just stared at me with miserable eyes. I couldn't shoot them, as it would waste bullets, so I found some form of blunt object while they were walking towards me and bashed their skulls in.

I'm ashamed to say it, but I searched the body of every corpse I came across, even the ones I had freshly made. Most of the time everything was ridden with bullets or blood or unknown goo, and I was unable to use it. Once I found a flick knife on a man who had been impaled on a large piece of shrapnel, but a screw was loose and the blade didn't close right. I threw it away.

Glass crunched suddenly under my feet as I continued to walk, so I looked up. I had walked up to a church without even realizing it. It had gaping holes in it where the glass had once filled in beautiful stained windows, their edges jagged like mouths that screamed. The glass under my feet was all red though, tainted by the blood that ran down the church's stoop to puddle at my feet. I wondered if a late service had been going on.

My spine tingled, and from instinct I looked deep into the darkness of the church. Something laughed inside its morbid depths, and a pair of red dots appeared in one of the wailing mouths the church now had for windows. An actual mouth, this one belonging to a German, with real teeth instead of glass, and it screamed too. Only this one screamed in laughter.

I recoiled as he vampire lunged for me. I tripped over something as I tried to get away, and I ended up sprawled in the glass, feeling blood slide down my arms.

"Shit!" I threw up one of my arms, one that was bristling with shards of stained glass like a destructive porcupine, to protect myself as the vampire came at me.

A scream bubbled in my throat, and I let it loose along with a string of curses as the Nazi sank its teeth into the meat of my forearm. Its watery red eyes widened when it swallowed some of the glass in my arm, and it tried to dislodge itself from me when I took out the gun I had found.

"Bite _this_, shit head!" I growled, shooting it right between the eyes and spraying myself with blood.

After that I stared at the body slumped in my lap, oozing grey matter all over my black slacks. My blood was racing, my heart stone still. I clicked my gun's safety back on and pushed the corpse off of me. Having used the last of my strength and with the adrenaline drained from my system, I slumped back onto the ground. More shards of glass cut the back of my neck, and I saw stars when one of them dug deep into a shoulder blade.

Between my heaving breaths, I muttered, "Ew." Blood was all down my front, so I took the collar of my jumper in my mouth and sucked at it. My thirst was making the back of my throat ache, which was why I needed to get to the mansion soon.

All of a sudden I heard someone speaking German inside the church. I snapped up at the waist, staring wide-eyed at the building. Glass fell from my back as I shook it off and plucked more shards from my arms. The bite from the Nazi was already healing, so I gave it a lick and stumbled to my feet as a few more vampires investigated the sounds of my gun.

I counted them as they crawled out of the church. Ten vampires and more ghouls than I could count.

Without any time for swearing, I spat out an incoherent 'eff' sound and ran, strafing from side to side when I heard gunshots.

Up ahead I saw an open door on a tall brick building. I streaked for it, hearing the other vampires behind me gaining. I grabbed the door when I was in and slammed it shut. Instead of catching on the frame it kept swinging, hitting a Nazi in the face and breaking his nose.

"Eat that, fucker!" I howled and ran up the stairs, jumping _four_ at a time and spiraling upward in the heart of the building. I was so scared and so tired that by the time I got to the top floor I had a few bubbles on the tip of my tongue, and I was practically crawling.

There was the door to the roof, where I would be able to see the mansion. The entire building was empty, and when I got to the top floor I could see why. A nail bomb had been dropped through the roof, and it left a gaping hole that was filled with darkness.

The door to the roof was locked, so I kicked it. A normal British girl would have just jabbed at the door with their toes going 'NEGH', but I spun around in a kung-fu kick that knocked the door off its hinges.

I ran outside onto the roof and looked around. I was pretty high up, though that apartment building couldn't have been more than twelve stories high. I could see over the other buildings, to the Thames and…

The German's behind me stopped dead in their tracks at the sight of the giant aircraft carrier floating down the Thames. I had about two seconds before they remembered the Brit in front of them was about to shit bricks, so I thought on my feet.

_I'm fast. I'm fast. That's the one good thing about me – I'm fast_. For the second time in my life, I crossed myself. The first time was when I was about to take a calculus exam that I hadn't studied for, and at that moment those days felt incredibly far away.

I bounced once on my heels, heard someone shout, and gave myself a running start. My stomach did a back flip when I jumped a little too late and didn't get as much lift as I wanted. But for some reason I was able to land safely on the rooftop that I had been aiming for, far away from the Nazis and their teeth. Aiming for the boat, I jumped again, coming closer and closer to the Thames until I could see the figure on it, the person who I knew would be there.

On the building I currently stood on, I could see that I had been in a quiet part of the city. Just half mile from where I had been, swarms of people dressed like American KKK members were searching buildings for protestants, making my blood boil in hatred. And there were so many Germans, so many brown uniforms and black personalities, all of them swarming against each other and towards the roof where Sir Hellsing stood with Seras, who now pulsated with more power than I could ever hope to have. I had half a mind to go down there with them, to see if the Angel Dust father had done anything to her, but I was being drawn towards _him_.

I saw him jump, going twice as high and three times and far as I had gone without all the ceremony that I had put myself through. He landed in the center of all the madness, whirling and pointing his guns at people but never firing. He looked up towards Integra and began to shout, howling his need for orders at her.

Fear twisted in my gut as I heard those words. Control Art Restriction. The last time those words had left _anyone's_ mouth I had watched Alucard _eat_ someone. He had shifted and formed _things_ that were inhuman. His head had dissolved. His _head_.

Pushing away the need to stick my head between my legs, I readied myself for the jump that would take me over the mobs of fighting enemies and to Sir Hellsing and Seras, where I would be useful and safe.

"_The Bird of Hermes is my name_,"

I jumped, flying through the air, streamlined and feather light. I guess one of the perks to vampirism is the fact that we can defy the laws of gravity, and at that moment I was. Sir Hellsing and Seras were getting closer, and as I reached the peak of my jump and began to fall, they looked towards me.

"_Eating my wings…" _Alucard was to my right, intoning and radiating heat and power. My ears rang and my skin tingled, as if I was falling into a fire.

Suddenly I heard a snarl to my left, but I put it out of my mind until Seras's eyes went wide. She screamed my name.

"Willow! Look o -!"

I didn't hear what else she said. I had been blindsided by a Nazi, who had seen me falling towards them and had intercepted me. I plummeted to the ground at an angle, trying to keep the vampire from ripping out my throat.

"_To make me tame_." I vaguely thought, _what does this mean_, before I landed.

The landing was the worst. I landed in the crowds of Germans and priests, screaming when the skin off my right arm and side was rubbed off by rough asphalt. I struggled to stand, but the vampire who had attacked me was biting at my arm, the same one that had been bitten by the vampire at the church. I tried to grab my gun, but he was pinning my good arm to my side, so all I could do was kick.

"Somebody!" I was being swarmed. Vatican priests shot at me, silver bullets embedding themselves in the ground around my head, and Nazis grabbed hold of my legs and slashed and bit them. Poison was in my veins. Someone shot me in the head, and for a horrible moment it was like dying in a dream, with everything going black. There was the sensation of floating, and I was shoved back into reality with blood smeared on one side of my face. My right eye wouldn't open all the way, though it wasn't swollen.

"_HELP ME!_" I sobbed, rubbing a cheek against the road to get as far from the sneering Nazi in my face as possible.

A thick blackness suddenly covered me. I couldn't breathe in it, and I was deaf for a moment. It felt like water, dark as pitch and lukewarm. Whoever had been on me was thrown off my some unseen force, but I didn't see where they went or hear them after that. I choked out a 'what the hell' right as a pair of red eyes floated by, seen by me and me only. They thinned in mirth as they saw my pain, and then floated away.

The blackness faded, and I was in the middle of the _worst_ Night of the Living Dead remake _ever_. All around me was a puddle of blood as black as night, and rising up from this were millions of ghouls. They were dressed in everything from armor to white peasant clothes, groaning and clawing at their empty eye sockets. A horse shrieked as it climbed out of the blood as if it were merely a deep river, and its rider promptly stuck a pike into the nearest Vatican priest, who was standing there gaping at everything.

Something hit me from behind, sending me flying, and not in a good way. I saw the black road a second before I hit it, and I flung my arms out to brace myself, but I still hit my jaw. Landing with a yelp and a bump, I rolled onto my back and spat out a molar, feeling blood fill my mouth and throat.

There was the rattle of steel, a sound that resembled the scrape of a handful of screws in a glass jar. I spat out a mouthful of blood and felt it run down my cheeks and chin, but didn't open my eyes. I knew he was coming; some sort of vampire thing told me – the same intuition that knows German and gets sexed up when Alucard goes all flappy in Rio de Janeiro.

"I told you not to leave her side," said a guttural voice, all accent and little anger.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you through the sock you apparently swallowed while you were at sea," I mumbled, opening my eyes a crack. "Never mind, that sock ate _you_."

Alucard had mysteriously gotten furrier while he was away. Or perhaps that incantation did it, because when he jumped off that boat, he had been his usual cheery red self. Either way, he now sported a moustache and beard, and his hair had seemingly gotten a perm that didn't take. The sound of steel against steel was coming from his plated armor as well as from the iron bands around his sword's scabbard.

It looked like I was squinting at him, but in reality I think that my right eyelid had gone wonky when I had gotten shot in the head. Alucard focused on that eye, and sighed.

"You look like a stroke victim," he said.

"You look like a yeti," I said.

With a grunt and an eye roll, Alucard grabbed the back of my bloody, brainy jumper and hauled me up so that he could growl in my ear. "You are lucky that my master is not harmed, and that she's fond of you." His voice took on an exhausted note. "And that I know how hard it is to refuse her orders."

And then he dragged me by the scruff of my ruined sweater to where Sir Hellsing and Seras stood, having climbed down from the building. I sulked during this time, trying to open my right eye a little wider and finding it impossible. Damn.

"Hey, wait!" I yelped as I was suddenly tossed over one shoulder, bruising my already sore midsection. I kicked a little, but went limp when I felt the hand crushing my calf. "Okay, I'll be good. I'm done."

"Good." Alucard had flung me across his back like a sack of potatoes because a few Nazis/priests had jumped up to block his way. It was hard to tell who was who; with all the blood, white and brown were dyed black.

Alucard ran a few steps, just to scare the enemies in front of him, and unsheathed his sword. I felt him swing it in a long arc, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a head go flying. Another swing and an arm fell twitching to the ground. I was nearly kicked in the face when Alucard jumped, so I craned my head up to keep it out of the way. I did not want to spend the rest of the night with a broken jaw.

And for the third time that night, I fell to the rough tar and scrapped a new side of my body. Cradling my bloody elbow, I looked up to see Alucard bowing so deeply to Sir Hellsing that he could have swallowed his own knee.

I watched sadly as they exchanged greetings that made sense only to them, and looked at my feet when Seras was given a smile and a pat by her master. Once again I wished for a sire of my own, and I would have even settled for _him_.

Suddenly I heard something both ominous and familiar.

The rustling of Bible pages.

I saw a white blur against the smoke rising from London, and I ran for Seras. She made a funny little 'whup' sound when I plowed into her, bringing her down as Alucard jumped to meet the attacker.

"Master!" Seras shrieked as Alucard and the Vatican priest tore at each other like dogs. She let out a small squeak of terror as Alucard was sent into the ground, bayonets coming at him like angry bees.

A gunshot rang out in the night, so different from the clang of steel coming from the ghouls that had risen from the black blood, or the scrap of metal from the priest. I saw a few holes sprout in some Bible pages, and slivers of metal went flying as they blasted apart the priest's bayonets. My one good eye widened as a red figure came leaping out of the smoke that wafted from his impact, laughing manically and shooting.

"He's ba-ack," I whispered, twitching a little when I saw that Alucard still had control over his ghouls even though he was back in his normal form. This disturbed me greatly, as the other Alucard, the one who had been eaten by a sock, seemed more controlled and less likely to take over the world with his fifty million ghouls and his God complex. This one was just going to go bat shit crazy on London.

Sir Hellsing came up beside me as the ghouls swarmed the priest. Her emotionless gaze frightened me, but at the same time I felt jealousy. How long until I was that desensitized? Perhaps you had to live with Alucard for a few years; I hoped that I would eventually be able to be like that. Once I thought about it, I knew it was already happening. A proper Englishwoman would have wept over the loss of London; I on the other hand was fretting over my droopy right eye.

"Did Alucard harm you for obeying me?" Sir Hellsing asked, not taking her eyes off the battle going on in front of her. I saw that they were glassy from exhaustion, reflecting the image of the priest holding his own ruined arm by the sleeve in his mouth perfectly.

"I think he might have kicked me, but he was perfectly pleasant after that." He also didn't kill me and use my bones to make a tuning fork. That was 'pleasant' for Alucard.

"Remind me to reprimand him when we get back home," Sir Hellsing said wistfully. Somehow her words gave me the image of the mansion in ruins; she was referring to the charred frame as home.

"I will," I breathed, squinting my eyes against the light of flares of flame. Some Vatican priests were blowing themselves up to help the paladin.

The space to my left felt oddly empty for some reason. I gasped when I remembered what I had been clutching at until two minutes ago.

"Seras!" I bolted for the wispy bit of shadow drifting towards the small army of ghouls. "Seras you can't go there!"

A horrible smell hit my nose, making me cry out in pain as it burned be from my mouth to my lungs. Seras seemed unaffected by it; though she did turn back a little to see what had made me scream. It smelled like wet wood and rust and…

It smelled holy. Ridiculously holy. How I knew that an adjective smelled like I would never know, but every pore in my weak little vampire body screamed 'back peddle into the nearest trash bin _right now_'.

I flung an arm over my mouth and nose and continued to shout for Seras. Sir Hellsing stood behind me, all aloof and peering curiously at the battle waging between her servant and the priest, who had sprouted enough vines to support a small ecosystem. For a moment I tried to be as calm as her, but I realized that, even with a Zen face, my stomach still had butterflies the size of fists in it. I wondered if Sir Hellsing felt that way too.

Then a horrible thing happened, and even though I probably would have been safer with him dead, I found myself running for the battle the same way Seras was.

The priest had come up behind and _above_ Alucard, and stabbed him. From over here I could hear the awful sound a skull makes when it is split in half like a watermelon, and I half expected Alucard to scream as thorns swarmed over his face and neck. But Alucard didn't scream in pain – I doubt he ever has – and instead developed this serene look on his face, as if the vines were showing him God.

Seras was outpacing me, racing towards her master so fast she was just a yellow and black blur, like a giant bumblebee. I tried to keep up with her, reaching out for the tails of her uniform, my heart squeezing unnaturally and my head spinning.

Something caught around my neck. It tightened as I ran into it, and suddenly I was jerked backwards and sideways and around and it soon I had no idea where I was. Everything around me smelled like metal cleaner, but all I could think of was Alucard. Pathetic me, always caring about the one thing that would eventually kill me, even when something else was trying to do it.

I slammed into something from behind, and the things around my neck began to dig in. Gasping desperately, I clutched at them with my hands, prying my way under them and keeping them from cutting off my head. Blood ran in thin rivulets down my neck, tickling their way to my chest.

The wires cut my fingers to the bone.

"Walter," I panted, turning my head towards the sky like I was drowning. I struggled to keep the fibers away from my neck, but I could feel them digging into my fragile finger bones. I was centimeters from being in two places at once. "Walter, please."

"I'm sorry, Miss Brenner." My vision as going black from pain as my ring finger went. The stump twitched a little, still aching where the rest of the finger had been. It sounded like Walter, but not really. "But you have been deemed useless."

More wires came and wrapped themselves around my legs, securing me to whatever that was digging into my back. I was thinking a pole of come kind. My vision was going even more, this time from blood loss. I had lost two more fingers, and blood was soaking the front of my sweater, which was already red so it didn't matter. I looked down and saw a black smudge against the red-brown of bricks.

"I did things, I swear," I croaked. A strand of wire was digging into the side of my neck. My right hand had lost all of its fingers and now hung at my side, all sad and stubby. Was I passing out from blood loss? Impossible. Vampires don't faint. They just die.

So I was dying, then.

"I did things!" I screamed as I felt myself holding onto the wires with only two fingers, holding it away from my neck like one would a shirt collar on a hot day.

"You did, Miss Brenner," the Walter-smudge said, a bit of amusement in his voice. "They just weren't good enough. Alucard is busy at the moment, or he would have come to kill you instead."

_Lies,_ my fogged brain thought. _You don't sound like Walter. I don't believe you, I _

My left hand fell to my side and the wires dug into my neck. Everything was dark.

xxx

I was having an out-of-body experience. I knew that much.

Floating, disconnected from everything, including emotions. I guess that last bit was good, because if I had been able to feel disgust/horror/fear/ect I might have been between a rock and a hard place (mental-wise) when I saw myself hanging high on a telephone pole on an abandoned street in a destroyed London.

I was strapped to the pole with Walter's signature wires, which carried the scent of my blood and mixed it with their metal cleaner smell. The fibers had gone loose, so I leaned forward a bit. My eyes were open a bit, making it look like I was just taking a peek at something on the street ten feet below. Blood was all down my front, and it pooled on the street.

After a moment of staring at myself I realized I was being tugged backwards, in tune with the blood at my feet. I was being pulled somewhere, and when I looked around expressionlessly I saw that blood was pouring out of windows, under doors, around corners, mingling in the street and sluggishly flowing somewhere.

Slightly curious, I let myself be pulled along, feeling very included. I saw a few very translucent people around me, though no one was as solid as I was. They looked as detached as I was, but every once and a while one person would let out a chilling scream, then go silent as everyone turned to look at them. So we all floated in comfortable silence, some of us vampires and some of us Nazis and some of us regular humans, all tethered to our blood as we moved deeper into London.

I was examining the blood rushing ever faster when I felt a familiar presence. I looked up, and if I had been normal I would have been surprise to see the aura connect itself with a little girl in a white uniform.

_I knew he would eat me one day, and I knew he would eat London. I just never thought it would be at the same time_, I thought, a bored look on my face.

Alucard's eyes flicked up to me when I came near. _Look at the mess you've gotten yourself into,_ he said, though his voice had a slight feminine echo. His opponent – who looked like Walter and yet was just a squeaker – was staring at Alucard in horror, but I had the feeling it was just the image of the vampire soaking up London like he was a giant sponge, and not because he could see a few willful ghosts going into him as well.

_Yes, well, I didn't mean to_. That was such a bullshit answer. 'I didn't mean to'. I had nothing better to say.

While all the other people around me were absorbed, I stayed floating a few feet from the female Alucard. And while he kept sneered and laughing and staring at his opponent, he was focused on me mentally. _The Police Girl is going to be sad once you're dead,_ he said, as if to make me feel bad about being dead.

_Hmmn_. I made a move to float into him like the others, but an invisible hand came up and slapped me away. The part of the ocean that was my blood just stayed in place, creating an odd little whirlpool the size of a melon. I felt itchy, and I wanted to finish my journey and become completely senseless, to lose the itch that was in a place I couldn't reach; like in the back of my throat, only more spiritual.

_Master will be disappointed in you_, Alucard purred in my ear, and the itch increased. I gritted my teeth and wanted to feel angry with him, but that was impossible. Emotion was beyond me.

_Stop that, I'm dead_, I ground out, pushing against the hand that had somehow come up behind me and started to pull me away.

_No, you're not_, Alucard chuckled darkly.

I felt something odd coming closer, though it was beyond me in a different way that emotion was. It felt malicious and even more disconnected than those around me.

_What do you mean? _I gasped as a jolt of pain went down my neck, and the tips of my fingers itched.

_If you were fully dead, you would not be able to speak to me. You would just be blood. You are hanging on, you pathetically desperate creature. _Alucard somehow gestured to another ghost without physically doing it. _Those like you are more gone, and those who are really dead have no ghosts left. _

_I'm…not dead?_ I asked dumbly, watching as another ghost was sucked up under Alucard's feet. So he was eating those who were still hanging onto life by a thread, but he wouldn't do the same to me, though he disliked me.

_No. In fact, you are salvageable._ Something was coming up behind Alucard. The suffocating evil was getting closer, and I could see two pale lights like eyes appear as the rest of the ghost stayed faded. _Do you want to live?_

Did I? Alucard was radiating peace, as if he had become the gateway of the dead for London. If I died I would see my family again, but I would be leaving Timothy and Claire behind. And Sir Hellsing and Seras would be disappointed to see my body hanging limp from a telephone pole like a pair of shoes from electrical wires.

_Alucard, behind you_, I muttered in horror as emotion came flooding back to me with the realization that a ghost with purpose was -

Red eyed widened as Alucard took in something that tore him apart the instant it was in his veins.

I screamed as I found myself hanging falling ten feet onto black tar that was covered with my congealing blood. I just lay there for a few seconds, feeling my brain kick start itself and all of the aches and pains of my body come flooding back to me. My neck was killing me, and my hands itched furiously. I had regained all but two of my fingers, but my left hand was missing its littlest and ring finger. A small price to pay for coming back from the dead.

My stomach and heart and throat burned, and the street was flooded with blood that was as still as a lake, which meant Alucard had stopped. I crawled towards it, seeing my mutilated hands clawing in front of me like pure white spiders. I grabbed at the blood blindly, my brain on fire and my arms shaking. Instead of cupping the blood to my mouth like I had planned, I fell face first into it and found it at least two inches deep.

_Pride later; blood now_. I breathed in the blood, gulping it down and almost choking on the disgusting taste it had. It was sour and cold and it made my brain swim with the images of a thousand lives and a thousand deaths. I drank for what seemed like years, feeling my body refresh itself and heal the deep gashes on my neck and fingers until they were just scabbed-over scrapes.

I lifted myself up to my knees and spat something solid out into my hands. It was one of my fingers. Awesome. I threw it aside and stood up, wiping my face on my sleeve.

Far away from me, yet so close, something powerful was dying slowly. And I was determined to do something about it.

xxx

"Willow, here, put this on your eye." Sir Hellsing held out a bit of cloth that was damp and cool from the slightly yellow water in the fountain we were resting at.

Seras sat on the white marble edge of the fountain, a section that was not tainted with blood, and stared at her feet solemnly. She licked her thumb and rubbed at a stain on her sleeve, one of a thousand just like it. Her efforts just led to the stain increasing in size.

I took the cloth but didn't put it on my eye, which was swollen and black from a nasty punch from an equally nasty werewolf. That would heal. The bloody slash where Sir Hellsing's eye had been wouldn't, so instead of using it on myself I gently began to wipe at the blood that dribbled down her cheek.

"You are going to look very distinguished with an eye patch, Sir Integra," Seras murmured, swirling a hand in the water. Blood floated off her hand and wrist and reached out tendrils into the yellowish water.

"Always thinking on the bright side, are we Poli – Seras?" Sir Hellsing winced as Alucard's nickname for Seras almost came out of her mouth. The nosferatu was still a touchy subject, and probably would be for a while.

Seras smiled a little, her first one in hours. That was a serious record. "My mother always said that when life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade."

I looked down at my hands and thought, _when life gives you vampirism, team up with the crazy vampire hunters and save the world from Nazis. It doesn't have the same ring_. I wiggled the joints of the fingers I had lost, and wondered how I could make lemonade out of them.

Sir Hellsing made a familiar movement, reaching into a pocket to search for a cigar. When she didn't find one she searched two more pockets and let out a sad little sigh. "Can we find someone whose life has given them tobacco?"

We shared a laugh that was going to have to last us a while.

xxx

Kana: AHA. And now we know why I gave this story such a stupid name.

There's the unsatisfying ending that we were all expecting :3 And here's why I did it: I was having a tough time figuring out what to do with Willow in the end, so I just left that up to your imagination. I did plan out her conversation with Alucard – as one vampire survives the other one dies; crap like that. Now, why Alucard didn't kill her the moment he saw her without Integra – I figured that since he gets a little saner in his Zero phase, and therefore more reasonable, so he would probably think of the consequences of his actions.

Review Responses:

vampwolf09: Aw, I feel all warm and fuzzy inside. That was probably the nicest review I've ever gotten. Thanks :3

Redwing-Vampire: I have read stories like that. They really tend to ruin a promising plot D: And I will totally go and look up those books – right after I read all the Stephen King books that are looming on my shelf. They call to me at night. I swear.

marora: Thank you :D I find that I really suck at third person, mostly because I feel like I can't give as many details as I would like. Plus, without first person, there would be less lulz, and that would blow

Linata Risako Sadayo: You make me want to go and read some Hellsing fics, which I haven't done in a bit. Actually, I haven't read much of anything on fanfiction in a while.

The Wicked That Mourns Just: (dances off stage)

Sarah Victoria Cullen: Thanks a bunch! :D

Hellsing's 2nd Nosferatu: Thanks! :3

Amethyst Moonshadow: My car does have a defroster. It just doesn't work very well. Luckily its getting warmer and the AC works just fine :D

blekmedelninjan: I think that if Integra told Willow to run around dressed like a chicken screaming the French anthem, she would do it. Willow respects Integra, you know?

End Responses

And that's about it people. Well, the epilogue is next, which will be short but fun to write. I hope to get it up within a day or two, work like hell on the new story I want to post, and start this batshit crazy journey all over again :D

Let's all review because LIFE IS ON TONIGHT (steals Wicked's happy dance)


	14. Drinking It

Kana: It feels nice to finish up a story. Considering the fact that I've been writing shit fanfiction since I was thirteen, I've only finished around four multi-chapter stories, two of them complete shit and two of them Hellsing, its still a nice feeling.

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Hellsing, which is obviously a documentary about the sporadic lifestyles of vampire Nazis. Narrated by James Earl Jones, baby.

I think that Stephen King's 'Dreamcatcher' would have been more adequately named 'Revenge of the Ass Weasels'.

xxx

**Making Lemonade**

**Epilogue: Drinking It**

xxx

I still had a little Alucard in me. Times like these only prove that point even more, when I was surrounded by people and very hungry.

This day was a momentous occasion. It was the first time in two years that London airports, train stations, and bus depots had started accepting 'outsiders', or people who had not been in London during the invasion – or 'one last ditch attempt at takeover by a dying organization; a very _human_ organization, _very _human' as the government liked to call it. How they had kept the secret of vampires from leaking out I will never know.

Since leaving the Hellsing organization two weeks ago, I had begun to notice more and more Alucard-like traits seeping into my personality. It wasn't as if I had started hating humanity – in fact I think Alucard liked people. Which was why when I started finding amusement in a human's obsessive need for personal hygiene, something I had once been known for, I knew it was because of _him_.

Somehow, Alucard had gotten into my head.

Or, at least a part of him. I don't know what it was; perhaps I was just settling down into vampirism in a way Seras had not. My body was edging closer into an emotional hibernation, where I would find amusement in swirl patterns on napkins and newspaper bylines. Soon I could go deep into madness and come out laughing…

But it's best not to dwell on that.

I saw a waiter looking over at me and squint his eyes, so I put a bit of sugar in the tea I had ordered. While stirring it I smiled at him sweetly, mentally telling him to look the hell away from the disturbed-looking girl in the cream jumper with a droopy right eye. I usually wore sunglasses to cover that eye up, because it made me look like I was about to sneeze, but wearing sunglasses in an airport terminal was more suspicious than having a wonky eye.

The waiter (who was way too snooty for a guy who worked in a place that sold hot drinks and finger foods) turned away with sweat glistening on his upper lip.

Once his attention was diverted, I sighed into my cup. The steam warmed my cold face and hands, but it didn't tempt me. My throat ached in tune with the beating of the neck veins of those around me, but I hadn't been able to sneak a blood bag into the airport, and even if I had I wouldn't have been able to drink it. There were too many people around, their intentions the same as mine; they were waiting for loved ones that had either been out of the city when the Nazis came, or had survived and left soon after.

I wondered if this was good for Claire. Planes had stopped flying over London for months after the attack to avoid having their passengers see the giant swastika burned into it, and even with all the effort that the public put into building areas so that the symbol faded away, you could still see it if you knew what to look for. And everyone in the world knew what to look for – the entire world knew that London had been branded with fire and blood. Bringing a little girl into the city after only two years…

The city was still in poor shape, but it was growing rapidly. Two months after the attack most of the corpses had been cleared away, and another few weeks after that the buildings were cleaned and the streets were washed from Alucard's last meal. I knew this because Hellsing had been volunteering with the city since the beginning. My hands still smelled like bleach.

Two years and London still looked a little hollow. Its population had gone from seven million and change to a little over three million, and those people had been lucky or on the outskirts of London. The schools were open again though, and Susan wanted Claire to come back home as if their stay in America had just been one long vacation.

I smiled a little when I thought of volunteering with Hellsing. Seras was almost fully in tune with her new abilities, which didn't really seem new after such a long time. She was currently practicing changing her clothing, using Alucard's bright red coat as a base. Apparently vibrant colors were more difficult. Leave it to Alucard to pick the brightest color imaginable (aside from pink) to show off.

Sir Hellsing was doing a little better. During the first few days after the attack, she was still calling for Alucard when she was particularly annoyed. When he didn't come we let her remember on her own, neither I nor Seras having the courage to tell her that Alucard was dead and his remains were merely a cube of cement with his seal on it. When she did remember she seemed to sink within herself, but recovered quickly.

I had felt a little bad leaving the organization after so long, but even Sir Hellsing said I needed to get out of London for a while. It was doing things to me. So I was going to spend some time with Timothy out in the country with relatives, until their apartment was up and running again and I felt less like a frog enclosing itself in frozen mud for the winter. After that I would attempt to settle down in an apartment that didn't ask questions when you slept in a crate of grave dirt.

"We'll make sure that you're welcome in the organization from now on," Sir Hellsing had said, blowing smoke in my face while she did so.

Translation: When you come back – and you _will_ come back - we won't shoot at you.

It kind of gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside my stomach.

A cheery mechanical voice spoke over the dull roar of the terminal. "_Flight five-ninty-five arriving from Bridgeport, Connecticut…_" yadda yadda.

That was mine. I dumped my lukewarm tea into a nearby trash bin and pushed passed some people loitering near it, making a beeline for terminal eighteen. My blood felt thin and light, and bird wings fluttered in my stomach. Oh, I couldn't wait to see Timothy and Susan and –

"Auntie Birdie!" Something small and warm thudded into my legs, like a pale pink cannonball. "Auntie, we saw you on the television! Twice!"

Oh god, she had grown. She was now in her late toddler years and she had lost her lisp, and instead of wearing frilly egg blue dresses she was wearing pink overalls, and she smelled like _blood_. I dug my heel into my other foot to distract myself while I hugged and kissed her. It felt good to be with her again, even though I had lost my birdie habits and had gained new ones – like walking around with bare feet (though not here) and smelling dirt because it reminded me of my crate.

Timothy and Susan came up to me carrying two fewer bags than they had left with. For some reason this stuck in my mind, though it was a useless detail. But no matter, as I was soon enveloped in a thousand hugs and a thousand greetings.

"It's great to see you guys," I whispered happily, feeling my smile grow so wide that it made my nose crinkle. I was soaking up their heat and loving how they kept hugging me even when they felt my cold skin.

"We tried to get in last year, but no one was flying in." Timothy buried his nose in my shoulder, and I was happy to see that his hair had lost some of its grey.

"Willow, you _have_ to tell us what happened," Susan chirped. Her face lost some of its enthusiasm when she saw my eye. "Oh my…"

I beamed. "You're not gonna believe it."

I walked out of the terminal holding my niece's hand and thinking of taking them to visit Sir Hellsing.

xxx

Okay, so I lost the end of this epilogue, which I had actually been satisfied with, when I had to re-upload everything to save my pagebreaks. I might come back someday and rewrite it, but for now this will have to do ;A;


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